


The Amazing Incredible Adventures of Freakboy and Dykegirl

by stele3



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Dinosaurs, F/F, F/M, Femslash, Gen, I REGRET NOTHING, Magic, lesbians, ponies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 89,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future-fic, AU in that Papa Winchester is still alive (or alive again, whatever). Told from the POV of Kim Watson, a bounty hunter who encounters a solo Dean; the two form an unlikely partnership.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://s211.beta.photobucket.com/user/stele3/media/freakboyanddykegirlcover-custom-size-600-400_zps10adfd74.jpg.html)   
> 

Chapter 1: Genesis

_In the Beginning there was me._

Hi. Kim Watson, bounty hunter.

Got into the business in Nevada. I started out as a parole officer in Vegas, which was a joke. Every con that came through, we had a pool on how long he’d last before gambling debts nipped his heels into motion. Everybody owes something in Vegas, some bookie or casino hand breathing down their neck the second they step outside prison walls.

And everybody runs in Vegas, even the chasers. Except Reese. Reese didn’t run, he fucking strode. Had the longest legs, wrapped up in Wranglers and topped with a belt buckle that blinded. He’d stride in dragging the latest skip behind him, take his share of the bail bond, and stride back out. Reese had no last name; he needed no fucking last name. Perps lived in terror of discovering Reese’s surname, convinced he’d kill anyone who knew. When Chuck Norris went to bed every night, he checked his closet for Reese. Reese, who never ran, who looked me up and down and said, “Well?” Reese, my first partner, my teacher, the man I buried in New Mexico after a two-bit with aspirations towards growing real balls put about twenty rounds into him. Buried the perp, too: the days of “Dead or Alive” are over, and dead collars mean diddly-squat.

See, people don’t know jack shit about the real bounty-hunting business. They think it’s all shiny guns and leather coats, traipsing-on-the-edge-of-the-law machismo and breakneck chases down back alleys after escaped serial killers. What it really entails are long nights outside some shack belonging to a skip’s girlfriend. Shitty coffee drunk for heat and caffeine rather than taste. Beaten-down cars and beaten-up guns that you try to fix between jobs and pray that they won’t fucking fall apart on you in the middle. Low-grade skips who hold up liquor stores, then get drunk and piss on you when you show up in their mom’s basement to drag their ass back to prison. Stupid people doing stupid things with their stupid lives, until you pray for nuclear war to thin the fucking gene pool.

God, I love my job.

Reese loved it, too. Never said as much, but he never said much of anything, not even when I’d had my hands over his heart, pressing down, holding in, begging and crying while red squished out over my fingers. No goodbye, no acknowledgement, no last words of wisdom. A grunt and a bloody grin, then poof. No Reese. I didn’t love my job so much that day.

New state, new partner. Donnelly Collins, who had a last name and thinning hair but damn that man could read a room faster than shit. Texas was a good gig, right on the border, where half-wits steer their compasses in a southerly direction for dreams of margaritas and warm pussy on the beach. Donnelly wasn’t better than Reese, not by a long shot, but he could see straight into people. Had a wife, Martha, who ran the books, cooked us dinner, and saw even straighter. I don’t remember her ever inviting; just that there was a place laid out for me, and the table would look pretty lopsided if I didn’t sit my ass down to supper like she said. They had kids, three of their own, and half a dozen others that I think were family or neighbors or something. Those ones came and went, generally. They all had a skittish quality to them, eyes wide like animals, and Martha was good, she was better than Donnelly sometimes. No sudden movements, plenty of offers for food. It took me a while to realize that a lot of those offers came in my direction, and I’d seen the same white-rimmed eyes in mirrors.

Donnelly up and had himself a heart attack in ’03; I stuck on working for Martha until she had enough saved up to close the business. She hadn’t wanted to, but her oldest was starting college, and selling the property paid for four full years at Texas Tech. I still swing back there occasionally, and there’s always a place waiting by the time I pull in the drive. Closest thing I’ve had to home.

I bounced around, had a string of bad partners that made me realize how lucky I’d been with Reese and Donnelly. Steroid-pumpers and death wishers who didn’t mind dragging me along that dark ragged edge. All amped up and jittery after a collar, looking for sex, and some of them were pretty fucking insistent. After a couple of close calls and bruised dicks, I started flying solo. Which is good, peaceful, lets me do my own thing. But it has its drawbacks.

Right now, for instance, a partner would be good to have. Somebody to come up on the other side of this fucker-- _Craig Ferg_ \--and get him in the back of the head so he’ll stop punching me in the gut. Funny thing is, I distinctly recall doing just that when he first walked into his empty house where I’ve been staked out all night. I know I nailed him pretty hard, and yet here he is, pounding away at me, shaking up ribs and fuck this is gonna hurt in the morning, if there’s a morning, ‘cause this guy, this low-grade perp who slashed his ex-wife in the face down in Tennessee then somehow got out of the jail cell, he’s looking at me with eyes so intense I fucking swear they’re glowing, and he’s coming at me fast despite all the hits I’ve laid on him, and he ain’t stopping for shit.

_In the Beginning, there was me._

Kim Watson, bounty hunter, getting the shit beaten out of her in some pissant yuppie housing development in Kentucky.

_And then God said, let there be Dean._

_And there was._

He comes crashing through the ceiling and fuck if I know what he was doing up there or how he manages to land without breaking his neck. But he swings up right away, eyes doing a clean sweep of the room, right to left, from door to back wall. Sees me, doesn’t blink, looks to Ferg. Which I can understand, but still, hello, bleeding profusely here.

But then the guy’s eyes find Ferg’s, and I’m glad he’s not looking at me like that. He’s bleeding too, a cut on the head, and his shoulders curve inward, probably protecting bruised ribs. Wouldn’t know it to look in his eyes, though: they speak no language but “slow death” and “quick burial,” though maybe not in that order.

I know that language. So when Ferg snarls and launches himself at the guy, I don’t get in the way. Not that I usually have a martyr’s complex: it’s in my code of conduct, a point of professional pride if you will, that I don’t let civvies take a hit when I’m on the job. But this guy, he ain’t a civilian, not by a long shot. So when Ferg goes right, I go left, crawling away on the floor. Not the most graceful or noble position, but Ferg’s fist had occasionally gone on a little detour from my ribs and clocked me in the jaw instead. My eyes feel like they’re back in Vegas, rolling around in slot machines.

Then I see glinting metal and the slots pop up. _Ka-ching_ , bitch.

Reaching out is a pain, but I get my hand around the handle of my .45. The two men dance around behind me, grunts and impacts and crashing. I roll over, aim, wait for the twisting bodies to part, and squeeze off two shots. There’re a couple satisfying _thud_ s and then Ferg turns, eyes blazing, and starts coming towards…

Hey. Waitaminute, now.

Maybe it’s the hits Ferg laid on me, or the illogic of I- _know-_ I-just-shot-him-twice-in-the-chest but as he lunges down, murder in his eyes-and yes, Little Timmy, they are fucking glowing--my fingers don’t quite manage the task of squeezing the trigger again until he’s almost on top of me. Then I pop off another shot right into his what-the-holy-fuck glowing eye. He screams, but more out of rage than pain.

Then the other guy is there, burying a big-ass hunting knife in Ferg’s chest, and the scream cuts off. Just like that, he goes down, convulses, froths, and goes still.

Silence falls, disturbed only by heavy breathing, and not the good kind. With a wince I roll over and rise on an elbow to look at Ferg. His eyes are open and empty. They’re yellow, too, bright yellow like a neon sign.

My mouth opens and words fall out, as they have a tendency to do. “Dude. Jesus just ain’t down with that shit.”

The guy’s breathing hitches a moment, and I turn my head. He’s looking at me hard, looking at the gun, like he’s seeing me for the first time. He watches me get up, doesn’t make a move to help, knows to keep his distance. I reach behind me, find the wall. Walls are nice. Walls are my friend right about now. We’re not lifelong buddies like me and the floor, but dammit, I’ve got some iota of dignity to protect here. And my fingers haven’t let go of the gun, which means they don’t trust this other guy completely.

I lean back on the wall, get a good look at him. Worn jeans. T-shirt, jacket. Boots. Couple of different places he could hide weapons. Oh, and I guess he’s good-looking in a Captain America sorta way, but I got different priorities.

“Who the fuck are you?” I ask through the gravel in my throat. Yeah, this is really gonna hurt in the morning.

“Rodent exterminator.” He doesn’t bat an eyelash when he lies. “Was clearing out the upstairs, heard you guys banging around down here.”

My eyes slide over the six-inch silver knife buried in Ferg’s chest. “Those must be some pretty big rats.”

“Huge.” He eyes the gun, not like he wants to take it away or is scared of it, just looking. “You gonna use that?”

I consider him. “Would it work on you?”

That shakes him a moment, makes him look hard at me again. “Yeah, last I checked.”

“Good to know,” I reply, and then my fingers surprise me by flicking on the safety and tucking the gun in the back of my pants. They’ve never gone from red alert to all clear quite so fast. But I trust my fingers, they’ve yet to lead me wrong.

The guy waits until I put the gun away, then steps over to Ferg. He yanks the knife out with a squelch, wipes it off, tucks it into a sheath on his side, underneath the jacket. Weapon placement #1. I’d bet he normally carries a gun on his back, something else on a leg or boot, one of the lower extremities.

“Okay,” he says as he rises, and suddenly it’s all business. “It’s gonna be okay. You got a cell phone?”

“Yeah,” I reply, stuck wondering how any of this could remotely be considered okay.

“Okay, go outside, call the police. Tell ‘em that he jumped you, tried to kill you, you struggled, got the gun away, and shot him.”

I blink at him, and he frowns. “Hey, you with me, lady?”

“Who _are_ you?”

He sighs impatiently, like he might as well be standing in line at a bank. “Look, just stay here and wait a minute, all right? I’m gonna go upstairs, then I’ll be right back and we’ll get you an ambulance, okay?” He’s already moving past me, going up the steps. He grabs the rail as he goes, though, so maybe I wasn’t wrong about the bruised ribs.

I lean back against the wall and try to pull together my fuzzy thoughts. Okay… let’s make a list, shall we? Man 1: on the floor, deceased. Craig Ferg, the escaped perp who was my bounty. Shit, and it was a good bounty, too. But a solid paycheck doesn’t excuse wanton disregard for physics and biology and whatever rules dictate that when one takes two to the chest, one goes down. So, freak of nature, on the floor, deceased.

There’s a hard thump from above me. Man 2: killing rats or something upstairs, very much alive. Unnamed, obviously doesn’t want to deal with police, is kind of a jackass. Also saved my life. Possibly a competitor for the bounty… but he knew how to kill the aforementioned freak of nature. Didn’t hesitate at the glowing eyes and other weird shit. Is most likely weird himself.

Other thumps come down the stairs and then… shit. Man 3: being dragged down the stairs by Man 2, dead. _Has Craig Ferg’s face_.

No, Timmy, Jesus ain’t down with that shit. Jesus is backing slowly out of the room, hands raised, doesn’t want _a-ny_ part of this.

Man 2 doesn’t pause for my gaping, just drags Man 3 out the front door, and I can hear him thumping down the front steps. I half-stagger after them, lean on the doorframe and watch as Man 2 douses Man 3 with what looks like lighter fluid, starts rooting around in his jacket. Man 3, his eyes frozen open wide, just lies there on the lawn and takes it. His neck is at a funny angle and his face is contorted with death throes, but yup, that’s Craig Ferg all right.

“Shit. Hey, lady, you got a lighter?” Man 2 inquires, like he’s gone through the bank line and is now pissed at the slow teller.

I turn around and stagger back into the living room, look down at the freak of nature lying on the carpet there. Looks kinda green, like his skin is melting or something, but yup, that’s Craig Ferg all right.

Man 2 has come in the house behind me, muttering under his breath about salt. He pauses beside me, looks at Man 1, looks at me. I point down at Craig Ferg’s doppelganger. “Evil twin.”

Man 2’s eyebrow goes up. “No shit?” But the hard edge is gone from his eyes, and he’s looking at me with what might pass for real concern.

“Evil twin,” I confirm. Brain shutting down. Motor functions failing. Time for only one last quip. “I’m either in a soap opera or the Twilight Zone.”

My last battered brain cell stands up and applauds before passing out cold.

 

Chapter 2: Reconnoiter

The first thing I think when I wake up is that I really shouldn’t have. I feel like a military academy: bits of me keep passing out from exhaustion. It’d be nice to evaluate damage, but by the time I poke a limb awake to check on its status, the part of my brain that processes that kind of info has collapsed in a puddle of its own drool.

The second thing I think is _oh shit, where are my kidneys?_ I’m in my underwear, packed in what feels suspiciously like ice, in what looks suspiciously like a hotel bathtub. The cold is probably what’s causing the whole numb thing which, okay, it’s nice to know I haven’t got brain damage, but not at the cost of my ability to pee. My poor little kidneys, out there on their own in the world. I get it into my head that they must be sitting out on the dresser or in the sink or something, and that I should find them before they get lonely or I die. I sit up and grab ahold of the shower curtain.

It promptly tears halfway off the shower rod and there come the sound of footsteps from the bedroom. Fuck, the black marketer is still here! I grab the tiny shampoo bottle and hurl it at the head that pokes into the bathroom.

“What--ow!” he yelps. “What the fuck, lady?”

Oh, _shit_. This weirdo would probably _eat_ my organs rather than sell them. “Gimme back my kidneys!” I slur at him, and pass out again.

The second time I wake up it’s a couple of seconds later as he’s lifting me out of the bathtub. I flop a bit and he snarls, “If you so much as move, I’m dumping you on the side of the road and leaving you for the cops to find.”

My whole body comprehends that threat, and I go still. He grunts and eases me up into his arms, carries me out to a bed. “How d’ya feel?” he asks, leaning over me to pull up blankets.

I’m awake enough at this point to bat his hands away, conscious that I’m wearing nothing but bra and panties. “Dandy, just fucking great. Who are you?”

He steps back, puts his hands on his hips and glares down at me. “You know if this is how you treat people who save your life, I hate to think what you do to your enemies.”

“I barbeque them. And I just woke up in a hotel room with a complete stranger after taking a hell of a beating from an evil clone or something. So cut me some slack, quit with the evasion, and gimme a fucking name.”

He studies me with narrow eyes, re-evaluating. I do my level best to meet his gaze, which is kind hard to do considering he’s standing and I’m flat on my back. Finally, he drops his hands from his sides. “Dean,” he answers, then turns and walks into the bathroom.

Awright, so he’s the cautious sort; can’t rightfully begrudge him that. In his absence I wiggle around, finally checking to make sure that fingers, toes, and nose all work properly. Positive replies come back from all quarters, but my right side aches like hell, my head feels blurry, my nose crooks to the left, and my teeth chatter with something other than cold. I manage to sit up and get my legs over the side of the bed. “What’d you give me?”

“Some morphine.” His voice drifts out accompanied by the sound of a drain being unplugged. “You had a nasty concussion, and I was worried about internal bleeding.” A pause, and then he adds, “I wasn’t sure you wanted to go to the hospital with fifty different IDs in your back pocket.”

I absorb that. Not exactly fifty, but I carry an assortment of plastic identities. Nothing I’d normally get arrested for: I’ve always been careful to not impersonate cops or health care professionals. But it woulda raised some red flags and brought unwanted attention. And he knew that.

He comes back into the bedroom to lean against the doorjamb, arms folded, watching me. The concern is back, hovering at the edges of wary, so I smile a little. “Thanks. Bounty hunting ain’t exactly legal in Kentucky.”

Dean’s eyebrows come up and his face clears a little. “Ah. I was wondering.”

“What a nice girl like me is doin’ in a place like this?” I wince halfway through the chuckle, and put a hand on my ribs. “Getting the crap kicked out of her by evil clones. What about you, what’s your gig?”

He holds up a finger. “Tit for tat. I show you mine, you show me yours.”

I eye him, wondering if he means that literally. But I take the point. “Kim Watson.”

He steps up, closes calloused fingers around my hand, careful not to shake it too much. “Dean Thompson.”

Momentous fucking occasion there, bitches.

I sit back, taking him in. “If you’re a rodent exterminator, I’m a beauty pageant queen.”

He laughs, looking me over. I know what he sees: stocky chick, about 5’8”, black hair cropped short, more muscles than boobs. And a flattened nose, from the feel of it. He sees me poking, steps forward. “You want me to set that before the morphine wears off?”

“Aw, fuck. Awright.”

He does it quick, expert-like, but frowns at the end result. I pull away from his hands. “Dude, it’s been broken before. Don’t worry about getting it perfect, there ain’t such a thing where my face is concerned.” He raises his eyebrows again, maybe at my words or maybe at how quick I jumped away, I dunno. “So, tit for tat sounds good,” I lumber onward, and arch my own brow.

He purses his lips, a tic I can tell he does a lot. “That’s… kinda complicated.”

“No shit? Gee, and here I thought evil magical clones would be easy to explain away.” He gives a bark of surprised laughter, and I grin despite myself. His laughter’s got an easy, friendly ring to it. “Lemme get you started: you’re Dean Thompson, you don’t like cops, you know enough about back-alley medical practices to make someone a pretty good nurse and you’re accustomed to weird shit.” I gesture at him to carry on.

Dean hesitates a minute more, then steps over to the small table, pulls himself out a chair and eases down into it holding his own side. “How much do you remember of last night?” he asks when he gets settled.

“Well, the bail skip I was after--Craig Ferg--apparently had a two-for-one deal on bodies.”

He nods, eyes studying me carefully. “Shapeshifters. Two of them, actually.” He pauses, waiting for my response. When I neither run away screaming nor laugh, he goes on, “Craig Ferg died three weeks ago. Cops are gonna find his body in a dumpster on Sixth Street. The two things you saw last night were shifters… they killed Ferg, took his keys, wallet, face--the basics.” He shrugs, smiling and flippant, but his eyes are like a hawk’s.

I try to do math around the throb that’s started in the absence of painkillers. “So--the ex-wife.” Two weeks ago, in Tennessee. “That was… them?”

“Bingo. I talked to her in the hospital. She was giving Ferg a hard time about child support. Couple weeks ago she called him up, set up a meeting. But when he shows…”

“It’s the shifter, not Ferg. Slashes the hell out of her face. Why?”

He cocks his head to one side, and I get the unmistakable feeling that he kinda wants to smile in… amusement? Bemusement? Something. “Probably aiming for her neck, not her face. New face, new identity. ‘Course, they weren’t counting on having to tangle with the former Mrs. Ferg.”

I chuckle a little, remembering my own run-in with the woman. “Yeah, I met her in the hospital m’self. I pity anyone that goes after her, magical or not.”

“They weren’t--aren’t magical. Not exactly.” He shifts in his chair, trying to get comfortable and not finding the way. “There’re a lotta different kinds of shifters, every culture’s got a legend. But these ones… they’re human, just twisted and fucked up in the gene pool.”

“Freaks of nature. Great. And you hunt them for a living?”

A grin slides onto his face, wide and full of teeth. “Something like that. Don’t get paid for it… more like public service. I gotta say, you’re taking this pretty well, concussion and all.”

“I got eyes and they haven’t gone crazy on me yet, so I tend to believe what they show me.” I heft myself upright. “Besides, I grew up in Vegas. I’ve seen weirder shit in my breakfast cereal. You got my clothes stashed away someplace?”

“Yeah.” He gets up, crossing over to the window where I suddenly notice sunlight drifting in. My jeans and black T-shirt hang from the window sill, and when he brings them over, they’re damp and relatively blood-free.

“Thanks,” I grunt, and step into the bathroom, partially closing the door. I’m still woozy on my feet, but manage to get the jeans up over my still-wet underwear. They’re gonna have to dry on me, but hey, we’re in a Kentuckian August, so fuck that, it’ll probably feel good once I get outside air conditioning. I hear him moving around in the next room, picking things up.

“So what else do you do?” I call through the bathroom door. “Or is the shapeshifter thing a regular gig?”

“Naw, I’m accustomed to all kinds of weird shit.”

I grin to myself in the mirror as he echoes my own words. My nose is still swollen and both my eyes are gonna be black and blue to match the marks on my side, but I’ll live to see another day. Once the shirt is over my head, I step back out into the bedroom. He’s packing up into duffel bags, a familiar activity to me: fitting your entire life into a 4-foot zipper. I glance over the various weaponry, take in the medical supplies laid out neatly.

Thanking ain’t something I like to do, but there it is. This is my life twice over that he’s handed me, and for all the shit I take, I like it better than the alternative. “Thanks, dude. For everything.”

He looks up, hands pausing in the act of checking the safety on a nice-looking Beretta. He smiles that wide grin. “Don’t mention it. Or, you know, do.”

I blink. Is he clueless? Then I remember that I’ve been unconscious and half-naked for 99% of the time he’s known me so far, and decide cut him some slack. “So where you off to now? Chasing Frankenstein?”

“Gonna swing back around Ferg’s place, check to make sure that nothing _weird_ is turning up.” He emphasizes the word. Clearly when one is capable of standing, one is a fair target for mockery.

I shift, fold my arms, slide back into _don’t fuck with me_ mode. “If you’re headin’ that way, you mind giving me a ride? My car’s parked a couple streets away from Ferg’s house.”

“No prob.” He picks something up, chucks it at me. I catch it out of habit; it’s my wallet. My mother, if I’d known her, wouldn’t have raised no fool, so I check the money in it. He sees, raises an eyebrow on me.

I roll my eyes. “Whatever, dude. We rollin’ or what?”

 

Chapter 3: Three Clones, Two Cars, and One Dyke

Outside in the boiling summer sun, I stop in front of the car, fold my arms, and mutter, “You’ve _gotta_ be kidding me.”

A Chevy Impala, looks to be late 60’s. Classic, sleek… with each and every spare part costing several extra hundred to replace, let alone the hours of upkeep my wary companion obviously puts into her. I could floss in the hood’s shiny reflection.

He pulls up just outside the driver’s door, ramrod straight like I just slapped him. “What was that?”

Men. I roll my eyes. They gotta have the style, screw practicality. Even Reese had his ginormous shiny belt buckle of doom. Still, I run a finger over the leather seat as I get settled. He catches me at it and smirks knowingly. My eyeballs go for another spin; I can already tell they’re gonna get a workout around this guy. Still, Donnelly’s voice echoes in my head, _You can usually judge a man by how he treats his tools_ , and I take a turn to notice the way his hand skims across the wheel, soothing. I half-expect him to start talking to the dashboard, _Don’t listen to the nasty bitch, baby, you know who loves you_. Jesus.

“So,” he says as he pulls out of the EZ Sleeper Inn parking lot, “if bounty hunting’s illegal in Kentucky, Ferg musta had one hell of a price on him.”

“I wouldn’t have come for the money. It was kinda a favor for an old friend.” Or friend of a friend, anyway: Martha called me up, said that an old pal of Donnelly’s slipped down the stairs and busted his knee in the middle of a job. He was against the wall financially and needed a cut of the collar something fierce. Martha hooked us up, brokered the deal: he’d done all the background work, looking up the addresses and mapping out the terrain. All I needed to do was slip across the border, nab him in Kentucky, haul him back to Tennessee, and claim that I nailed his ass in-state. Split up the bail bond, everyone goes home happy. I relate pieces of this to Dean, leaving out names and specifics. Golden rule numero uno: never let shit back to Martha or her kids.

Dean’s eyebrows go up when I name my cut at twenty-five grand. “Jesus. You make that much per job?”

“Naw. You were right, Ferg had a pretty high price on him. Not enough to get arrested and lose my license over, but enough to make me think. He jumped state lines, went after the mother of his kids, had enough money put away to be a flight risk… bail was a hundred grand, pretty steep. I usually get anywhere from ten to twenty percent of the bail bond. Minus the cut to my associates, and it still woulda been a sweet pot.” I shrug, ignoring the twinge my ribs give me.

He turns a corner and something rattles around by my feet, drawing my attention. “Usually don’t get that much… some pissant knocks over a convenience store, his bail’s closer to ten, maybe twelve grand. What’s this?” My fingers close around plastic, and I bring it up, flip it over.

It’s a picture frame, some cheapo shabby deal from Walmart. Inside there’s a photograph. Three men, sitting in a tavern booth, stare into the camera. _Read people_ , Donnelly says to me and I do. Two sit together: father and son, unmistakable. They’ve got the same coloring, same wide relaxed smile. The father sprawls, arm laid across the back of the booth, reaching to encompass both the other two. The son sits close to his dad, but he tilts slightly in the other direction, putting out a shoulder, wants to lean against something that isn’t quite there anymore. And beyond the father’s reaching arm or the son’s searching shoulder sits Dean Thompson, straight and square, arms pulled in tight to his sides. Big smirk laid across his lips, cocky tilt to his head, no leaning, no reaching, closed on himself tighter than a bear trap. I could practically draw you a line through this photo, some fucking Great Wall of China that the father and the son haven’t noticed yet. They’re still smiling, still reaching, still thinking that their son and brother is just there on the other side.

He yanks the frame out of my hand, tosses it into the backseat. His face when I look is closed up tight, and damn he’s good at that. It would take years to get inside, just like it must have taken years and miles and God-fucking-knows-what for his father and brother to find themselves on the outside.

“My car’s a Honda Accord,” I say into the strained silence. “Red, parked just off Beeker Street.”

He looks back and forth between me and the road. “You’re giving me shit about my ride, and you drive a Honda Accord?”

“Hey, don’t bash it.” _Cars = safe topic. Check._ “Car’s seen me through some rough shit.” He scoffs a bit, shakes his head. “Aw c’mon, man,” I push on. After a lifetime of riding in cars with men I know how to fill the long silences between, make them forget there was ever a time when they didn’t have me with ‘em. “How many classic Chevy Impalas are out there? You get an APB put out on this baby, you’re screwed. Hey, turn here… Seriously, though, Accords, they’re a dime a dozen. Just melt into the background.” I wave a vague hand just as we turn the corner and I pause mid-gesture. “Motherfucker.”

Parked beside the dumpster of Frank’s Fish ‘N’ Fry is my Accord, or what’s left of it. Tires slashed, windows smashed in. I hop out of the Impala, sprint over with visions of several thousand dollars worth of equipment running through my head. “Mother _fucker_.” But the duffel bags are there in the backseat, or at least two out of the three. And the third has my gu…

I see him out of the corner of my eye about half a second before Dean shouts in warning. Craig Ferg version 3.0 rises up from the driver’s side where he’s been waiting, face twisted with hatred. He lifts the Colt he filched from my weapons bag, aims it at my heart.

The hammer falls and the gun goes off. I flinch instinctively, then dive for the pavement, grabbing my chest for the bloody wound that isn’t there. My ears ring like an alarm clock but other than that I’m undamaged. Ferg’s face looks more confused than anything else, kinda comical. Then there are a couple more shots from behind me and two gaping holes blossom on his chest, oozing green. The shifter’s yellow eyes lose their focus, and he slides slowly to flop on the pavement.

Dean’s on my shoulder, grabbing at me, then pausing. “You’re not hit?”

I take a couple breaths, fighting the pain of bruised ribs and concussion. Then I grab the Accord’s hood, haul myself upright, and walk over to scoop up the fallen Colt, show him the small bit of blue tape wrapped around the stock. “Blanks,” I pant. “It’s my Scaredy-Cat gun. Works great for crowd control. Squeeze a couple shots into the air, make a lotta noise, let everyone know you mean business. If the cops pull you over, they can’t arrest you for something that ain’t actually gonna shot somebody.” The duffel bag’s at my feet and I nudge it open. The other Colt’s still inside, marked with red. Fifty-fifty chance, and he took the blue pill. It was that close, that fucking close…

“So,” Dean says as he eyes the oozing body, “that makes three. You think we’ve left enough evil clones littered around the city yet, or you wanna go for four?” He’s got a smirk painted on, and I just _know_ that he saw the tape, too, read the odds. The joke’s for my benefit and like him a lot better for it.

“Well, we just fired gunshots in a residential area. I think it’d be wise to beat a hasty fucking retreat.” I give the Accord a once-over; it’s goin’ nowhere fast. “You mind giving me another lift?”

He cocks an eyebrow, cool as a cucumber, smirk changing into a grin. “If I don’t, are you gonna tell them to look for the sweet Chevy Impala?”

I match him tooth for tooth. “You bet your ass I will.”

It takes five minutes to wipe the Accord of fingerprints. It’s in Reese’s name: I never did have him officially declared dead and I don’t think he would’ve had it any other way. I grab the duffels out of the back and then we peel rubber for the Illinois border. Dean flirts with the speed limit all the way there, keeping it just under. Don’t wanna get pulled over with all the heat we’re carrying between the two of us.

The sun wanes, sinks into the west. We drive mostly in silence, eyes on mirrors looking for pursuit.

Finally, passing through Paducah, I speak up. “How come your bullets worked?”

It takes him a second to respond. I can practically hear the ‘interpersonal communication’ muscles creak from long neglect; whatever family he has or had, Dean Thompson has been on his own for a long, long time. A man in a car with a gun and I feel a pang that might be sympathy. “They were silver,” he finally replies, “melted down, set into bullets.”

“I thought that was for werewolves.”

He nods, eyes on the road. “Yeah, it works on them, too.” Off-hand, like it’s another day in the office.

I take a few minutes to process that. Shadows grow in length and number as we hurtle into night. It feels suddenly like we’re moving into a whole other world, Alice dropping down the rabbit hole, except the Cheshire cat has six-inch fangs. “There are werewolves?” I ask, and somehow I know just how monumental that question is.

He hears the weight I put behind it, and turns to look at me. I meet his eyes, let him see the equal amounts of curiosity and apprehension, just so he knows that I’ve got some idea how deep this shit is that I’m stepping into it. He reads me, nods once. _Yep, Little Timmy, there is an Easter Bunny and he wants your_ immortal soul.

I could get clear, claw my way out of the rabbit hole before some other nasty bug-eyed thing jumps out and grabs me. Humans scare me enough most of the time, I don’t need my horizons expanded to include werewolves and shapeshifters and whatever else Dean Thompson hunts as part of his ‘public service.’ It’d be the smart thing to do.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not the brightest bulb in the batch.

“On that note,” I announce, sitting up, “I think I need hard liquor. You wanna stop someplace once we get to Illinois?”

It catches him off guard, but he recovers fast. This, he is used to. “Oh uh…” The smirk comes back in a hurry, and he looks at me all sideways, green eyes half-closed and he could be dangerous if I swung that way. “Well, now that you mention it…”

I blink. Mother Mary on a bicycle, there _are_ men this oblivious! “Dude, that wasn’t me hitting on you. I’m gay, Dean.”

“…wha?”

I bite my lip hard, ‘cause I don’t think he’d like being laughed at. And I don’t wanna laugh, ‘cause then the bear trap will snap shut and I already know that I’d rather be on the inside than out. “Why don’t we start over,” I suggest when I know my voice is under control. “Hi, Dean, my name is Kim Watson and I’m the single biggest lesbian that you’re ever going to meet. No offense, nothing personal, but I’d rather have sex with a female dog than fuck a male human. Now, do you wanna stop at a bar or should I break out my Southern Comfort and quietly go insane in the back seat?”

 

Chapter 4: Random Facts About Lesbian Sex

Outside the unfortunately-named Goreville Tavern Dean shuts his car door and looks across at me. “Seriously?”

 _Oy vey_. “Is this something you think I’d joke about?”

“Well, no, but… you don’t seem… never? I mean, you’ve never had sex with a guy?”

I sigh, throw up my left hand, put my right over my heart and recite the Dyke Pledge. “I, Kim Watson, would rather choke on the barrel of a Glock than ever gag on a cock.”

“Wow. Okay then.”

“Why, were you expecting to get some?” I say it real casual-like, joking as we head for the tavern lights. But I cut him a quick look; this is the First Test.

He shrugs. “Woulda been nice,” and lets it go just like that. Passes with flying colors. I’m liking this guy more by the second.

The tavern floor’s littered with peanut shells that crunch underfoot. Country music and there’s quite a crowd of farmers, tractor drivers, good ole boy badge-wearin’ Republicans. A couple give me a cock-eyed once over: chick in their male midst sporting an equal number of bruises and freckles, black hair full of two-day grease hanging in tangles past my chin. One of them chuckles as I pass with equal parts sneer and leer. It’s enough to bring my jaw up and add a little spice to my stride.

A low chuckle from behind alerts me that Dean has noticed both my spice and its source. “Careful with that chip on your shoulder, sweetheart. Shrug and you might kill somebody.”

I pause and glance back at him. “If I fuckin’ blink, they win. And don’t call me ‘sweetheart.’”

He raises his hands in surrender, drops them. “What’s your poison?”

“Two shots vodka, straight up.”

“Jesus, right to vodka? You’re not that big, but I’ve got a busted rib… you pass out and I might leave your ass among the locals.” But it’s said with a smile, an empty threat.

I fold my arms, add some more spice. “Thompson, bring me vodka or I’ll shrug at you and put a dent in your pretty-boy forehead.”

“Ah, so you _do_ think I’m pretty.”

I snort and slid onto a bench, a little more ginger with myself than I’d ever admit to him. The vodka’s as much self-medication as macho posturing, which I have been prone to from time to time. Every damn day.

Sneering in someone’s face tends to distract them from the presence of boobs and too-skinny wrists. I’m not petite by any stretch but bounty hunting often includes wrestling matches on hard pavement that would make The Rock whimper and I’m no fucking giant. Reese was. Reese was huge, a slab of muscle on legs and even _he_ wore his shiny belt buckle and cowboy boots for the intimidation factor. Those first few years with Reese had been easy on me; but when he’d fallen from atop the tower of those legs, I emerged from the protective shadow a skinny girl with scared eyes.

I ate and worked out until I had one hundred and forty pounds to throw around, but that’s still a good fifty short what I need. So what I can’t make bigger with muscle or meat I bluff, talking, walking and even drinking big. Wore sunglasses until my eyes got harder, went all-out dyke a few times and shaved my head. Camouflage, an ordinary snake imitating a viper.

I glance up and see Dean leaning against the bar negligently flicking peanut shells across its surface. Leather coat, torn jeans and boots… camouflage, him trying to look bigger and badder than he is. But he doesn’t have to worry about scaring skips into submission and somehow I doubt that monsters would think twice about sinking teeth into leather. So who does that leave?

A man in a car with a gun. He’s only got himself to convince and he still has to bluff. _Damn._

I redirect my attention to the table and consider my options. Again, there’s the exit. Share a couple drinks, learn a bit about the wide weird world of monster hunting, hitch a ride to the nearest bus station. Or I can go to work on him. With what? Not sex, obviously. From (unpleasant) experience I know I’m passably attractive to men, but the thought frankly turns my stomach. I’d use hospitality if I had a home: it worked for Martha and her offers of food, appealing to some basic animal longing for that warm port in a storm.

Then I think of the photograph: Dean, Father and Son sitting together in a bar not unlike this one. Son’s shoulder leaning like something solid belongs there but has temporarily moved. I consider it. Tricky, but it might be doable, if I am in fact staying.

When he comes back with two shot glasses and a beer, Dean’s got a dark look on his face. It takes me a second as we get the drinks rationed out to realize this is his ‘thinking face.’ He points it in my direction and I think _here we go_.

“Tell you what,” I get in before he can start. “Question for a question, alright? You answer a question about bug-eyed monsters, I answer one about lesbian sex.”

That stops him dead for a few seconds. “What, ah, what makes you think I was going to ask you about lesbian sex?” I don’t dignify that with a response; just sit and wait. After a minute he laughs in this funny _pleased_ way and says, “Okay. You go first.”

I slide fingers around one shot glass and down it lightning-quick. Burn hits my stomach and the poor abused organ almost turns over. I take a breath and grit out, “So. What else is there, besides werewolves and shapeshifters?”

He sits back, tapping the side of his beer with a finger. Purses his lips. “You want the whole list? That’d probably take all night.”

 _Shit_. “Gimme the abbreviated version, then.”

“Alright.” Something slides over his face, cold and dark and just a little bit cruel. This one is easier, I’ve seen it before: his Game Face. “That thing your mommy told you doesn’t exist? Does. Boogeymen, witches, demons,” his face goes stone cold on that last one, “ghosts, poltergeists… most all the legends you’ve heard are true and there are a lot more that you probably haven’t heard. Will ‘o the wisps, chimeras, golems, fire salamanders… you taking notes?”

I down the second shot. I’m gonna need more. “Vampires?”

A flickering, unamused smile touches his lips. There’s a story here, but not yet, not yet. “Yeah. Not many, but there are vampires.”

“Aliens?”

“Not that I’ve met but I wouldn’t be surprised. Don’t I get a question? I think I remember being promised a question, about lesbian sex no less.”

“Hold on.” I get up, go to the bar for another two shots. I put them on deck and wave a hand. “Ask away.”

The Game Face disappears. In its absence, he opens his mouth and closes it. I am inwardly incredulous; he’s _embarrassed_? Seriously? Who _is_ this guy and who owns the patent? “What,” he falters, “um, how…”

I prop my chin on my hand and chew a hole in my cheek trying not to smile. This is better than pay-per-view. “Oral and dildos, mostly. Don’t tell me you’ve never had a threesome.”

“Well yeah. Plenty.” That’s a slight exaggeration, I can tell. Probably four, five at the outside and I doubt he remembers half of them. He gets himself together to smirk, though. “But I think most the girls were focused on me rather than each other.”

“Please.” I put up a hand. “Hold the descriptions. To answer your question, there are a wide variety of ways to have lesbian sex.” _Do not laugh, do not laugh._ “I personally like a strap-on dildo. But good old wine and dine works wonders, too, and there’s a lot less equipment involved. With strap-ons, you might need lube depending on what kind of material the dildo’s made of, or how big it is… they come in a lot of sizes, most bigger than real life and without lube I could hurt a girl who’s used to the smaller ‘man’ version. Hence, the term ‘carpetlickers’ is actually fairly accurate.”

After a long, long time, he reaches out and takes one of the shot glasses. Downs it, chases it with his beer and waves a hand to invite my next inquiry. He looks a little flushed. _Do not fucking laugh_. “How’d you get into the business of chasing monsters?” I ask.

It takes another few minutes for him to answer and in that time he starts at flustered, flits at mach speed through pain, sadness, loss, fear and anger, swerves for the barest second into hatred before diving back out to wind up at grim with a big side helping of bitter. I sit perfectly still, wondering how anyone could _feel_ that much at one time and not explode. There is a story here, The Story, but there’s no way in Hell it’s coming out tonight. It’d take years and tears to hear it from him and the fact that I’m even thinking about this means I’m doomed doomed doomed.

Finally he sorts through the train wreck going on beneath his skin and comes up with an answer suitable for our glib little game. It’s still a doozy: “Demon killed my mother when I was a kid. Went looking for it, found a lot of other things along the way.” He’s got the same look on his face that he had in the photo, closed up so tight nothing can get in or out. Locked down and God knows how long he’s been that way. A long fucking time.

Years and tears, but I’m already going and I know it. I don’t touch the last shot glass. This is gonna be hard, nearly impossible, and I’ll need my brains in their best non-smashed state. “Didja get it?”

He looks at me cold and hard and it takes everything I’ve got to hold those eyes. But I do. He sees and I realize that I’ve just entered his version of a First Test. “Yeah,” he says in a flat voice. “We got it.”

I nod, still not looking away. ‘We,’ not ‘I’. Those two in the picture with him, on the other side of the Great Wall. “I’m obviously not an expert, but something tells me that winning a grudge match against a demon makes you a fairly bad motherfucker.”

He blinks, shifts, takes a pull from the beer, and says, “Hush yo’ mouth.”

I put my head back and laugh. Dean smiles and the moment passes. I pass. When we’re both more relaxed and settling back, I cock an eyebrow. “So?”

He takes a breath, gearing himself up. “In your professional lesbian opinion,” ( _what?_ I think), “how many chicks are actually _in_ to other chicks? ‘Cause I’ve had--some surprises, yourself included. Like, I’d have some homegrown country girl,” he gestures around him, “who'll get two beers in her before making out with her best friend.”

This, I allow myself to laugh about. “Oh, Dean, Dean.” I reach across the table and take his hand, feel the calluses on his fingers as they close automatically around my smaller ones. “My young Padawan, you have much to learn. There are no straight women, Dean, just sober ones who haven’t met me yet.” At his incredulous look, I laugh again. “Seriously, dude! You get me in a room with the straightest straight girl around, leave me a strap-on and a bottle of vodka. I’ll have her on her back in three hours. It’s a gift.”

I let him go, slide him the last shot glass. His stare cracks up into a slow, deep chuckle. It jogs things loose in him and I take a chance on that train wreck.When he waves a hand for my turn, I get a deep breath, focus my attention on the bowl of peanuts between us, and slice open the scab. “You ever see anything with red eyes? Looks human but moves fast.” Memory kicks in and I shiver. “Real, real fast. Like, a blur.”

When I check him, he’s studying me hard, Thinking Face in place. “Where?”

I swallow. “New Mexico.”

He purses his lips, leans forward. “Looked completely human except for the eyes?”

“Yeah… all of him. He was naked.”

“Native American? Navajo, specifically?”

“Yeah. Bail skip, some drunk who shot his cousin, never showed up for his court appearance.” I kinda wish I had the last shot of vodka back.

His eyes, which had gone distant, come back around in a hurry. “Killed his own family member?” At my nod, he says, “Skinwalker. Navajo witch who take the form of animals, or just tap into their abilities.” A pause, then my little risk pays off. “You tangled with one?”

I grit my teeth and force the wound open a little further. This is My Story or at least a chapter; one of us has to go first. “We. Me and my first partner, Reese. It got him, then I got it. ‘Course I didn’t know what the fuck it was at the time, thought the skip had just downed a shitload of PCP. Always stuck with me, though… he moved so fast.” I try to shrug and don’t quite manage the trick. “Faster than me, anyways,” and I curse my wobbly voice.

Dean watches me in silence, takes a pull from the beer. When he sets it down, he’s got that faraway look again. “Skinwalkers are pretty bad news… they were human once, but fucked something up… broke a taboo, like killing blood relatives. They lose their humanity, but get power, can heal or kill with energy or just run really goddamned fast. Hard to catch, nearly impossible to kill without knowing how. So, kudos.” He raises the beer to me, takes another swig.

If I hadn’t been paying close attention, I wouldn’t have noticed that he just effectively absolved me of all guilt. Then he gives me time to recover, makes a big show of finishing off his beer and ambling up to the bar to get a fresh one. Goddamn this man. Goddamn me and my obsession with strays. Shoulda just gone to a pound and picked up some new slobbering mutt, but it’s too late now.

I glance up in time to see Dean staring open-mouthed at a passing waitress’ breasts. There’s my slobbering mutt. Lord Jesus, roll with me now, I’m gonna need ya.

“What’re you smiling about?” Dean asks curiously when he comes back.

“Not a damn thing. You got another question or should I just fire at random?”

“You’ve got random facts about lesbian sex?”

“Hell yeah.” I prop my elbows on the table and go straight for the gold. “For instance, did you know that lesbians are God’s chosen people?”

I have to repeat it before he’s sure he heard me right and even then he looks like I’m speaking Greek. “You, ah… you got some logic for that, or is your special brand of crazy?”

“You know all those bullshit Christian types who say AIDs is God’s punishment on gays?” I flourish my hands. “Lesbians hardly ever get AIDs. Or any STDs, for that matter. Breeders get them more than we do; ergo, we are God’s chosen people and ya’ll are damned.”

That gives him cause for a full-on beer chug. “Has anyone told you you’re half nuts?” But he’s got a grin curling on the edges, just busting to get free of the coffin.

I go digging for it. “Yeah, that’s been well-documented. But my logic stands, brother. Even without deities, lesbian sex has numerous advantages over any other form of fuckery.”

“Bullshit.” The grin’s almost there, even as he puts on some mock indignation.

I raise my hand, start counting off on my fingers. “No STDs, no chance of pregnancy, low potential for same-sex rape…”

“Yeah, but you can’t take your dick out and slap it down on the table.” He raises the beer, smirking instead of grinning, which isn’t the same, not at all. One is defense, the other is surrender.

Time to pull out the big guns, literally. I push back, stand up and reach into my jacket. “Wanna bet?”

It takes thirty minutes for him to stop laughing enough to breathe, another ten before he can talk. By then we’re speeding out of town hell for leather with threats of moral outrage nipping our bumper. “I,” he gasps between gales that have him doubled over the steering wheel and swerving across the road, “I--I cannot _believe_ you--you carry a six-inch dildo around in your _jacket_.”

“Well, I was kinda hoping for some action, to be perfectly honest. Just not the fist-throwing variety.”

“With a concussion and your face black and blue?”

“Chicks dig wounds.”

“This is true.”

“Teaches me for looking to score in a place called Goreville. Is my head still bleeding?”

“A bit. Man, I’ve never seen a crowd turn ugly so fast.” He laughs again, shaking his head in wonder. The grin’s erupted in a veritable fountain that covers his entire face and body with open unguarded delight. “You _are_ fucking nuts.”

Mission accomplished, and not near as tricky as I’d feared. I swipe at my scalp, wipe the smear of blood on my jeans. “Yeah, whatever. You good to drive for awhile?”

He gives me a sideways glance. “Depends on where we’re going. I mean, you haven’t exactly named a dropoff point yet, sweetheart.”

I settle down in the seat and shut my eyes. We hurtle forward into the night and I can feel it beginning, feel it bubble underneath my skin. Years and tears it’ll take, but I am nothing if not a tenacious bitch. “Southward, brother. Wake me when we get to Arkansas. And don’t call me sweetheart or I’ll take my dick out and hit you with it.”

 

Chapter 5: The Plan

Ah, the beauty of sleeping with your mouth open. I groan and move a dried-out tongue stiffly along the backs of my teeth, trying to work up some saliva. My head still aches, though my ribs have settled down into grumbling discontent rather than outright torture.

There’s a guy asleep on the car seat next to me. One would think, given… well, given _me_ , that this might elicit some batshit-crazy hysterics and/or bullets. But I’m accustomed to sleeping alongside men more often than women. A walking contradiction, me.

The Impala’s parked on the side of some back road underneath the hanging branches of a willow tree. Thin leaves flicker in the early morning light-- _or evening? Shit, who knows?_ \--and the rolled-down windows admit a faint breeze that smells of cut grass.

Well, okay then. I fold my arms across my chest and go back to sleep.

I wake again when a truck goes by. This time it’s light enough to see my watch. 6:45 AM. Gah. The guy beside me sleeps on, one hand inside his jacket, probably keeping a finger on the gun at his side. _Dean_. Dean Thompson, oh he of the freaky bug-eyed monsters and tightly-contained emotional train wreck. _Oy vey_. The truck woke him, too: his eyes do that not-awake-but-aware thing, open without seeing, checking without consciousness. When nothing either attacks or snuggles, the red-rimmed lids close again. In sleep he is no less guarded, face tight and body pulled in close like if any part of him strays too far he’ll lose it. A bruise from the shapeshifter colors his temple red and in the semi-light it has the appearance of an open wound.

Okay. Dammit, adrenaline hangovers never fail to make me introspective and shit. I shake myself, open the door and slide out.

A sour whiff in the clean morning air tells me I need a bath ASAP or at least a change of clothes. I’ve had the same shirt on for three days in a Southern summer, never mind Dean’s quick wash job. _Jesus_. Mid-stretch, I pull a face and lower my arms, not wanting to kill the pretty willow tree with whatever crawled into my armpit and died there.

There aren’t any signs or directions… just a single lane of half-pavement, half-gravel bobbing up and down over hillsides lined by a trees and tentative fence. Arkansas, maybe, but it could just as easily be Mars.

Miraculously, I still have a cell phone signal.

“Kimmy?”

“Hey, Martha.”

“Sugar, if you’re anywhere in Lake City, _get out_ , there’s weird, weird stuff…”

“It’s okay, relax. I’m in Arkansas. I think.”

“You _think_.”

“It’s a five-shot story, get ‘em lined up.” Movement in the Impala draws my attention. Dean’s sitting up, scrubs a hand over his face. “Listen, the long and the short of it is, I didn’t get the collar.”

“Collateral?”

“Depends on your definition.”

“You’re not sure where you are and you have _collateral_?”

“Well, not so much collateral as a stray.”

“Human or four-legged variety?”

“Neither. It’s a guy.”

A long pause. “’Scuse me while I line up the shots. Vodka?”

I grin. Oh, if this woman was twenty years younger. “Listen, I’ll explain it later. Can you get ahold of Bartlett?”

“Got him on speed-dial. Why?”

“I need you to tell him I’m honoring the deal. Hold on, hold on, just listen. Tell him I’m honoring his deal, but with a different skip.”

“Kimmy…”

Dean gets out of the car, stands beside it stretches. He pauses and sniffs his armpit. I turn away, pitch my voice a little lower. “Listen, Martha, I can’t explain everything to you right now. But I’ve got something going and I really need you to trust me on this. It’ll make sense… well, no, that right there’s a lie. Just--trust me on it.”

She sighs the heavy breath of a resigned mother. “Gray hairs, Kimmy, gray hairs. Alright, what do you need?”

I take my own deep breath. “I need all the info Bartlett can find me on Brett Hosley.”

She swears, violently, then cuts off. Probably looking over her shoulder for the delicate ears of small children. I use the pause. “Martha. Trust me, okay. I need a two-oh, only way the bail’s gonna be anywhere the same. And I got other reasons.”

Silence comes over the line, but after a moment I hear the scratch of a pen. “This stray of yours,” she says finally in a tight voice, “he got your back?”

I glance over my shoulder. Dean leans against the Impala’s door, looking in my direction expectantly. “That’s the plan.”

“I’m not gonna ask if you know what you’re doing.”

I half-laugh. “That’s why I love you.”

An hour later I sit back from a plateful of pancakes and say, “I got a business proposition for ya.”

Dean looks up from his French toast, frowns. He’s got damn good instincts, must have a fluttering of what I’m about. But it’s just a fluttering and he’s not sure what to do with it. “Business?”

“Yeah. You know that deal I had? Well, dead collars give no cash and cash is what I need. There’s another skip I’m looking at.”

Dean sits back, too, skeptical. “I’m not a taxi service, sweetheart.”

Jesus, if I don’t get this just right… “I was thinking less taxi and more backup.”

He narrows his eyes as the fluttering gets bigger. “Not really looking to get into the bounty hunting business.”

“Not for a cut of forty-five grand?”

He blinks, takes a sip of his coffee. He does that a lot when startled, buys himself some time with a little sideways motion. “Thought you said that bail bonds weren’t usually that high.”

“I did. They aren’t.” I reach into my messenger bag, pull out a file. I’d brought it with me on the trip after Ferg, though not actually with the intent of taking the job. But a skip like this, everyone wants to know the face… out of self-preservation if nothing else. I open up the file, let him see the mug shot. “Guys like this, though, they tend to bring out the bucks. Brett Hosley. Nasty, nasty fucker. Three years in Texarkana for aggravated assault, another nineteen for two counts of manslaughter. A week ago he and two other inmates busted out… cops got the other pair, but he’s still at large.”

Dean’s not leaning forward, looking at my face instead of the pages. Shit, I’m going about this wrong. I sit back, at a loss. “Anyway, I’d split my cut with you. Twenty-five grand, in half.”

“Why?” Not refusing, but far from biting.

I chew my lower lip. He’s looking at my face. At me. The pages, the money, mean jack shit to him. “’Cause I can’t do it alone.” I let that hang in the air for a minute, then quickly add, “The job, I mean. Hosley, he’s a two-oh, hardcore.”

“Two-oh?”

I glance out over the restaurant, doing some sideways action of my own. I’m usually pretty good at thinking on my feet, but this guy’s so damn tricky. “Skips are the same as any other animal. You corner them, they got a fight or flight response. Now, a good eighty percent or so, they’ll run.”

His expression gets clearer. “But Hosley’s a fighter.”

“Bingo. A twenty-percenter, those are the ones that really bring in the money.” I shrug, slide the papers back into the file. “’Course, you gotta win the fight. Normally I wouldn’t go after a two-oh. Ferg was supposed to be a yuppie who snapped at his bitchy ex-wife, not a psycho shapeshifting whatever.”

“So why are you going after one now?”

I play my last card. “’Cause I got people counting on me. If I don’t come through, my friends are jacked.” Which isn’t a lie: Bartlett is about two weeks from having his house yanked from under him and Martha’s been fucked out of her teacher’s pension. “So, I gotta come through.”

Something changes in Dean’s face like a key turning in the lock and he nods slowly. That, he gets. “What do you need from me?”

I give him my best lopsided grin. “Honestly? I need you to make sure I don’t die.”

Bartlett, bless his cholesterol-clogged heart, tries to talk me out of it when he calls a couple hours later. “Hosley’s a stone killer, Watson. He ain’t big, but he’s vicious.”

“Then I better find him quick before he finds fresh meat.” There’s no room for argument in my voice, but Bartlett’s a determined fucker.

“You’re gonna break Martha’s heart one of these days,” he says gruffly.

My stomach clenches. “You got the info or what, Dr. Phil?”

When I hang up five minutes later, Dean glances over at me from underneath his shades. “So where do we start?”

“Where every good story begins and ends.” I look over the addresses Bartlett gave me, start searching the map Dean grabbed in the last gas station. “Hosley’s got a girl in Little Rock. He’s gonna need the essentials: cash, transport. But he’s also been in prison for five years. First rule of hunting people, brother: keep sex on your mind, ‘cause they always do.”

A slow smile stakes its claim to his face. “I think I’d be a good bounty hunter.”

I return the smile and the thought. “Sweet Jesus knows I am.”

A few miles pass accompanied by the flutter of paper as I turn the map this way and that, memorizing the best routes and lines of attack. Dean’s got a local classic rock station on, taps his fingers along to two songs. Then the opening lyrics _I see a bad moon arising_ drift out and he switches off the radio in a big damn hurry.

“So how’d you get into the bounty hunting business anyway?” he asks in the sudden silence. As much to distract himself from whatever memory the song brought as genuine curiosity. I take some time to process that, disguised as making notes on the map.

“I worked as a parole officer in Vegas. It was a shit job, pointless, really. Everybody runs in Vegas… all those gambling debts. Between us and the casino goons, no one could afford to stay in town. So after a while and enough missing parolees, I started chasing.” I pause, glance out the window. So many cars like this, sitting shotgun, and I can still recall the feel and smell of the first. “There was this guy that always brought back the bail skips and parole violators, Reese. He took me on, taught me the ropes.”

After a minute, Dean says quietly, “And he was the one…”

“In New Mexico.” I stare down at the map, then force my hands to work again. “Yeah, he was. Had six years with him, though. I don’t got any family of my own, so for a while, Reese was pretty much it.”

Dean watches the road, adjusts his sunglasses a bit, presses his lips together. That hits him somewhere deep. I think of the picture I saw yesterday, the three men and a Great Wall. I’d have to look again to be 100% but I’m pretty sure the oldest man and Dean have the same nose.

“You got a girlfriend somewhere?” Dean asks finally.

I give a sharp bark of laughter. “Good Lord, no. Plenty that want the position, but no, man. Not unless Satan’s serving popsicles.”

That loosens up the tense spot between his shoulders, makes him chuckle with recognition. “Alright then.”

“What about you? Got a girl?”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “If I did, would you introduce her to your little friend?”

I stretch, pretend to consider. “Mmmaybe.”

Silliness slides into serious faster than an eyelash. I’m just good enough to keep up, though, and I look back square on the level while he studies me, eyes narrowed but not really hostile, just assessing. The real answer is no, never in a million years, and he gets it, bless him.

We drive for a while lulled into easy silence by the early morning peace. I finish studying the map and sit back, kicking off my shoes with a grunt. There’s another unpleasant waft and I wrinkle my nose. “Brother, we gotta stop someplace with a shower.”

 

Chapter 6: A Pinch of Salt to Take the Devil

We roll into Little Rock in a midday cooker, both our windows rolled down all the way.

“Alright,” Dean says, sitting back and pulling a face. “Shower. Nobody with a nose is gonna give us the time of day.”

“No argument. Honest folk’ll be at work anyhow.”

“You saying something about my honesty?”

“We just got through littering Kentucky with corpses, dude.”

“True. But they were bad, bad, evil corpses.”

A swim camp is just checking out of the motel when we pull in. Putting me in the same room as a group of small children is on level with throwing an uzi into the break room of a post office, so I stay outside while Dean pays. When he comes back I get out my wallet. “How much?”

He waves a hand, flicking a credit card at me. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. It’s on Gregory Fern.”

That takes a minute to sink in and then my spine stiffens and I adjust my sunglasses. “Fake plastic?”

Dean pauses at my tone, cocks a smirk. “Like I said,” he replies, “my kind of hunting doesn’t pay the same bucks as yours.”

We could square off about this and the set of his shoulders tell me he’s ready to, but that’s another day’s fight. I’ve scooted around plenty of hedges in my time: one more won’t kill me. I shrug and keep my voice neutral. “Dibs on the first shower.”

I put a duffel bag on each shoulder, one for clothes and the other for weapons. Inside the bedroom I set the guns down with an audible thump and head to the bathroom. A sign of trust between hunters, leaving your gear in plain sight.

With the bathroom door closed and locked, I carefully slide the Beretta from my back, lay it on the toilet tank, in reach of the shower. I’ve got a good read on this guy, but I’m not an idiot.

Dean’s kicked up on one of the beds when I come out, TV turned on and eyelids half-closed. I dump my clothes on the other bed and start rooting around for Hosley’s file before I notice and pause. “Hey, dude.”

Glassy eyes flick over at me. I jerk my chin at the mysterious line of white drawn across the doorway. Dean sits up, rubs at his face. “Salt. Keeps out the Big Bad Wolf and his buddies. All-purpose deterrent… won’t take ‘em down, but if it’s supernatural, chances are salt will fuck it up somehow. Lay it over entry ways and nothing nasty can get through.”

I check the windows. Yeah. “A pinch of salt to take the Devil?”

He doesn’t laugh. “Dunno, never tried.”

 _Well, shit_.

I chew on that while Dean’s in the shower. When he comes out wearing a tank top over boxers and a towel draped around his neck, I ask, “So if a werewolf comes charging at me, I should throw a salt shaker in its face?”

He rubs at his hair with the towel and it comes away at cross-ends. “Werewolf, no. It’ll hurt, but those fuckers are so hopped up on blood lust nothing’ll stop them short of silver bullets. Ghosts, poltergeists, demons, those are the things salt’ll stop cold. ‘Course, you don’t use a salt shaker.”

He goes over to his own pack of weapons (which he left in the room, too) and rummages a bit before coming up with a shotgun slug. He pries and twists it open, shows me the guts. They’re white. “You made salt-filled shotgun rounds?”

The grin that bends his lips is pure craftsman-proud. He lives for this shit. “Pretty good, huh? Fire one of these into a nasty and it’s fucked for at least five minutes. Not permanent, but something to slow it down while you’re getting the rest of your shit together.”

I put the slug back together and weigh it in my palm. “You got more of these?”

That earns me a sideways look; he’s feeling the fluttering again, wondering what I’m about. “Sure. You joining the wide world of ghost hunting, sweetheart?”

I close my hand around the slug and fold my arms. “I’ve seen a skinwalker take down my partner and almost got my head torn off by shapeshifters. If something freaky comes at me again, I’d prefer to be prepared. ‘Cause clearly, pretending that it doesn’t exist ain’t gonna do me a damn bit of good.”

I don’t know what the fuck I’ve said there, but part or all of it goes right through him. He respects it in the marrow of his bones, from his soul to the soles of his feet. Even straightens up a bit, stands at attention like a soldier receiving orders. “Salt works,” he says after a minute. “If someone’s acting funny, look at their eyes. Yellow glow means shapeshifter and you can fire away, preferably with silver bullets. Black eyes means a demon’s possessed their body and that,” he smiles grimly, “is a bit trickier. ‘Cause it’s still the human body. Gotta do an exorcism, if you like the person.”

His eyes are shadowed and he turns away, leaves me wondering what he’d do about a person he didn’t like.

 

Chapter 7: Texarkana

“You snore,” Dean informs me when I fall out of bed at 6pm.

“Whine about it,” I reply smartly and head for the bathroom. He makes this huffing, scoff/laugh sound, one that he’s made before. What passes for laughter in Deanland. _Jesus_. He has a land now. My reflection smirks and shakes its head at me.

When I come back out he tosses something at me, a breakfast bar. “Hope you like granola, sweetheart.”

I aim it at his head and fire. “Ow!” he yelps, holding his ear. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” I remind him, bending down to retrieve my bruised breakfast/dinner.

He grumbles all the way to the car, but back out on the road with his sunglasses on, all silliness vanishes. “Where’s the girlfriend live?”

On the corner of Beecham and 39th, it takes three rings for the girlfriend to answer. When she does I immediately know that a) Hosley’s come and gone and b) she’s lucky to be alive. Swelling has closed one of her eyes shut and she peers at us fearfully from the other, not moving to open the barred outer door. “Whaddya want? G’way, I already talked to the cops.”

She’ll either tell us everything she knows in the first five seconds or fear is gonna snap her mouth shut. “We ain’t cops,” I say flat and quiet. “And we don’t give a shit about aiding and abetting.” Her lips tighten: I’d bet hard liquor that she’s had cops leaning on her door with that threat. “Law and order ain’t our gig; Brian’s got money on his head and we want it. From the looks of things,” and I take a hundred dollar bill out of my wallet, plaster it up against the screen, “you could use some, too.”

She blinks, startled. I’d bet another round that she’s had folks playing the empathy card, asking about the bruises. I don’t glance at them, look at her straight in the eye instead. Appealing to her emotions isn’t going to work: they’re what got her into this mess in the first place.

Dean hangs back while I talk to her. On the way to the car he asks, “That how it always goes?”

He’s looking over his shoulder, at the cracked windows and filthy couch on the porch. I tuck away the roll of bills. “Second thing you’ve got to keep on your mind at all times: dinero. I always got bills on me for cabbies, bouncers, bartenders… anyone willing to gimme a tip. But more than that, money is power.” I pause just inside the chain-link gate, following his gaze back to the house. “We all want what we don’t have, brother. She’s got no power, never has. I offered her some, she took it. ”

“And what about you? What do you want?”

He asks it without thinking and for just a moment his face is wide with curiosity and an openness that surprises us both. It’s wrenched away just as fast and suddenly he looks off-balance, hunched up like he’s waiting for something to attack him. Pulling away like _I_ might lunge, rip him open. But he recovers quickly with a shrug and smirk. “Oh, sorry, forgot. We’re here for the money, too.”

There’s no dig in his voice: it’s less commentary and more just another part of the cover. I wisely do not reach for that vanished openness. Grabbing at it might break something I’m not sure yet how to fix. “Bingo.”

His body unwinds itself and he passes through the gate ahead of me, fishing keys out of his pocket. I watch his shoulders straighten from that protective hunch and wonder if he was abused, molested, tortured, _what what what_ the fuck could make someone like him so furiously terrified of just _knowing_ another human being.

But that isn’t it… naw, there’s more to it than that. It’s knowing and _being_ known. Trusting and being trusted.

It occurs to me that I shouldn’t touch him. Not that that’s at the top of my list of things to do, but I gotta remember not to physically touch. At least until I’m sure it won’t tear holes in him.

“So,” he says when we’re both safely inside the Impala again, “Texarkana?”

I nod. “If she’s telling the truth, and I’d bet solid money that she is, he’s ain’t gonna be long.” I flip through the file, chewing my thumbnail, tapping it against my lower lip. “Got no family there… must be a contact, some other lowlife willing to help him out. That’s where he committed his first crime, the assault. They always go places that they know.”

Dean starts the car, checks over his shoulder as he pulls out. “You think he’s heading for the border?”

There’s a tickle going on in the back of my brain and I fucking hate that. It’s there, dancing around like a little fucking fairy in the shadows, out of reach. “Best bet,” I say slowly.

I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. “But?”

The fairy cackles and disappears into the shadows. I close the file, shaking my head. “Ain’t nothing in the world’s for sure, brother. Keep your guns clean and your body lean and the good Lord will see you through the rest.”

We cruise out of town around 8 pm, turning southwest towards the setting sun. I pull down the visor against the glare and close my eyes. “You’re going back to sleep?” Dean asks with a note of incredulity.

“Brother, after many a long night I have developed the magical ability to sleep wherever and whenever I can.” I fold my arms and wriggle in against the door. “Gonna need my wits about me later. Texarkana shouldn’t be more than ninety minutes or so… wake me in an hour.”

I shut my eyes.

I don’t last an hour.

After thirty minutes the little bastard fairy walks straight into a nice dream about Monica Bellucci and kicks my sleeping brain right in the metaphorical nuts. The kick sends me lurching forward, half-awake hands scrabbling for Hosley’s file. “Shit… _shit_.”

“What?” Dean asks from the driver’s seat, instantly on high alert.

“ _Shit_ ,” I swear again, ripping open the file. “You got a fucking dome light or what?”

He wordlessly yanks the glove compartment open, flicks on a flashlight and holds it up while I paw through the papers. Words jump out lightning-quick: _taken into custody… off-duty trooper… Texarkana_.

I whip my cell phone out, hit the speed-dial. Martha’s voice answers bright and clear, probably pulling an all-nighter by the phone. “You okay, Kimmy?”

“The Texas state trooper,” I snap without greeting. “The one who arrested Hosley the first time, that got the threatening letter. Did he live in Texarkana?”

Martha pauses but just barely and when her voice comes again I can tell she’s moving. “He was a Texas trooper.”

“Texarkana’s got the fucking border right between its legs. And he was off-duty when he arrested Hosley, right?”

“Yes,” she says, and papers rustle like static over the phone. “Yes. Daniel Lawrence. State trooper in Texas.”

“ _Does he live in Texarkana?_ ”

“Yes.”

I take the phone away from my ear for half a second and spit, “ _FUCK_ ” to no one in particular.

Dean watches me, silent and ghostly in the flashlight’s uneven beam. I bring the phone back to my ear. “Martha. We are half an hour outside of Texarkana. Get me an address.”

When I hang up Dean is pushing 90. “He’s going after the guy that arrested him?”

“He’s a two-oh, hardcore,” I reply grimly, reaching into the back seat for my weapons bag. “The trooper got a psycho letter six weeks after Hosley was sentenced… they could never prove it was from him, though. The fucker’s been holding onto the grudge for five goddamned years and now’s his big chance.”

I take my Colt out, strap it to my body. Knife in my boot and retractable Asp baton clipped to my belt. The trooper had been thirty-three when he’d arrested Hosley… _Shit_. And even if Hosley doesn’t know the trooper’s address, he’s got a two-day head start on us, if the girlfriend is to be believed, which now I really fucking hope I was right about her…

Dean says quietly, “I’m dead.”

My brain and body squeal to a halt. He looks out the windshield until I stumble back to life. “W-what, you’re like… a ghost?”

He scoff/laughs without an ounce of amusement. “No. Wish it were that simple.” _Oh, what the_ fuck _?_ I think with an inner moan of horror, but he’s still talking. “I’ve met a shapeshifter before. ‘Bout, ah, seven years back, in St. Louis. He wound up with my face and two bullets that I put in his chest. My name isn’t Thompson. It’s Winchester and according to the law I’m a dead serial killer buried in Missouri.”

The headlights dance across the faded white line on the side of the road as we hurtle forward. I take a steadying breath. “And you were planning on revealing this to me when?”

The lines of his face lie in granite. “This was a one-shot deal, right? I’ve gotten by the last seven years just fine. But if you want me to walk up to a state trooper and introduce myself, then, sweetheart, we might have problems.”

I sit back, suddenly devoid of oxygen. A mile marker whizzes by… _47 miles to the border, 47 miles._ _Two day head starts on us. Thirty-eight years old_. “Thirty-eight years old. The trooper will be thirty-eight, in the great breeder state of Texas. He’s gotta have family.”

Dean’s mouth is a thin line. The speedometer hovers right at 90, rises.

 

Chapter 8: The Two-Oh

_Every time, every time…_ I went bungie-jumping once, stood up on the bridge with the rope on my ankles and my toes touching air. The jump and the fall, seeing the ground ahead, trusting the line to yank me back…

I’ve only been bungie-jumping once. Then I became a bounty hunter and never needed to fall off bridges again. Every time, every hunt, my toes touch air and I can only hope the line is strong enough.

-o-

How Dean gets us to Texarkana in thirty minutes is not something I like to discuss. Suffice it to say, when we passed the city limits I cross myself.

“Main Street, take a left,” I direct, quiet and clipped. We haven’t talked the whole time, not until we pull up on the street and park beside a fire hydrant. Then Dean switches the engine off and in the stillness my ears vibrate.

Dean’s already got his gun out, lunging for the door before I get a hand on his arm. “Dude, wait,” I whisper.

It’s too dark to see his face, but the outline of his head snaps in my direction. “Why?”

I grit my teeth. “Well, A, we don’t know if Hosley’s even in there, and if he isn’t, then B, we’ll get arrested. There’s a bit of procedure here, Dean.”

“ _Procedure_?” he hisses like I’ve just suggested he try spicing up his sex life with necrophilia. “Are you kidding me? He could be in there right now…”

“Or that state trooper could be sitting at his dinner table cleaning his gun. Now if you want to get out of this alive and un-cuffed, shut up and do as I say.”

I yank the passenger side open, half expecting him to immediately drive off. Surprisingly, he follows, though there’s a pissed-off kick in his step as we slither down the sidewalk to the two-story on the corner. The place is nice, if boring: the only point of interest is the large _Beware of Dog_ sign hanging on the fence. I groan and drop to a crouch just outside the gate. “And me without a doggie treat.”

The street is thankfully quiet, the still peace of mothers wrestling their kids into pajamas and fathers watching Sportscenter. Good thing, too, there’s enough light for someone to glance out their window and wonder about the two nutjobs squatting on the sidewalk outside Darrell Rasmussen’s house.

“Alright,” I mutter. “Fortunately, we’re not cops, so we don’t need a court order to go in here. But we do have to establish reasonable suspicion that Hosley’s inside. Door’s intact… let’s do a circuit of the house, circle around and meet on the other side. Check windows, any other doors you find…”

“Kim,” Dean says low and level, “where’s the dog?”

I stop short, then kick the gate, rattling it. State trooper in Texas, he’d have one huge guard dog. But there’s no answering bark, nothing.

I take a breath, push it out, feel everything wind up. Feel my toes touch air. “Right, then,” I say, and hop over the fence.

We’re up on the first step of the porch when I look down and see the dog, a sleek ridgeback, lying tucked under the steps with its throat cut.

Quick note about me: do _not_ fuck with the animals.

 _Ever_.

Anyway.

The next few minutes happen very quickly. We’re inside the house, up the stairs, Hosley’s got Rasmussen’s teenage daughter stripped naked and pinned down and _that_ \-- fucking A, man. If I am honest with myself, the only reason I don’t tie him down and let the dark, cold thing inside my chest devour us both is that Dean seems determined to do it first.

That snaps off hyperdrive mode, a line yanking me away from the onrushing ground. ‘Cause Dean’s already over, he’s free-falling, he’s sitting on Hosley’s chest among the shattered mess of the girl’s bedroom and hitting him again and again and again. Eyes narrowed to slits and lips pulled back, hurtling downward as his fist connects with flesh. I’ve got ten, maybe twenty seconds before they both hit bottom.

“Dean,” I croak, hoarse with adrenaline. He doesn’t respond, blind and deaf to anything but Hosley’s bloody face. I lunge forward, grab his arm as he pulls back for another hit. It’s so fucking stupid, you never get grab wild animals or pissed-off hunters. Dean snaps sideways, elbowing me hard, but I block it and then twist. Standing over him, I’ve got the advantage and he falls sideways, scrambling to get his feet underneath him. Every inch of thousand-sun-burning hatred fixes on me.

So, so fucking stupid. I met this guy _yesterday_ for Christ’s sake. I look into the face of my own murder and spit out the first thing that comes to mind. “Girl’s been raped.” I hover a hand on the Asp at my side.

God bless me and my blind instincts. That doesn’t bring him back from the abyss, but it slows down the plummet. He blinks and I forge ahead. “The girl’s been raped, Dean.” I point behind him to the tearful blue eyes and the mess of brown hair crouched on the floor. Looks around fifteen. “She’s gonna need an ambulance. You gotta take care of her, I’m shit with females.”

Hosley groans from somewhere near my heels. Dean’s flat, blank eyes flicker down and narrow again. I swallow and take a step towards him, another stupid fucking move that I fully anticipate will get one of my limbs torn off. _And me without a doggie treat._ “He’ll get what’s comin’ to him. I promise.”

His eyes don’t quite believe me, but then the girl makes a high quivering sound of fear and pain. And that’s like a line threaded underneath all his muscles and every inch of skin. He turns to her, body lurching and face twisting up with the sudden shift in gravity.

There’s no room in me for relief. I turn to my own prone charge, who is currently trying to pull himself upright with one hand on the doorknob and his ankles tangled up jeans. I indulge my own inner bitch long enough to kick his exposed genitals and he goes down soundlessly, mouth open and eyes squeezed shut. Further Inner Bitchitude has to wait, though… Dean murmurs softly to the girl behind me, and I don’t want Hosley in the same room as either one of them.

“Lemme do the talking,” I toss over my shoulder as I haul Hosley to his feet by his hair, handcuffs clenched tighter than necessary around his wrists. Dean does not respond, but I’m a bit beyond caring at the moment.

The caring part kicks in a bit later when I’m sitting on the couch with about twenty cops standing over me and Hosley facedown on the floor. He’s woken up enough to start buttering us all up with vulgarities. Over the litany of filth from the carpet, I’ve given them my story twice over with as much truth as I can. They buy it, or at least they don’t care enough to look too hard. Just like they don’t care enough to patch up the fucker’s face.

I saw EMTs head upstairs, though, and after a while Dean comes down. He’s a skittish horse among the sea of uniforms, stands on the balls of his feet ready to sprint. Then a loud curse and accompanying spittle drops his attention to the perp currently getting acquainted with the carpet’s dust mite population. Dean’s eyes immediately slide back into that dark, deadly shine.

I look until he looks back. I keep my face clean, no recriminations, no accusations, just watching.

The killer’s look fades from his eyes. And thank God for that, ‘cause if it hadn’t, everything would have ended right there. I woulda fucking hitch-hiked back to Martha’s rather than get back in the Impala with him. But he pulls it back, controls the two-oh inside himself.

After a bit he comes over and sits on a recliner nearby. Lets me do the talking. They take his name as Dean Thompson, don’t ask follow-ups. It’s wordlessly accepted that he’s my partner.

Around 10:30 Darrell Rasmussen and his wife get home. I hear them before I see them, frantic syllables that echo through the open front door. By then the girl’s on her way to a hospital and Hosley’s been taken somewhere outside. Dean and I haul ourselves upright just as the Rasmussens barrel into the living room. They’re dressed small-town nice, probably been on a date, but all that niceness has been shattered wide open by the looks in their eyes. In the flurry that follows Dean and I stand on the wall, granite-still.

And then someone says “bail agents” and the room turns to us.

Beside me Dean radiates tension. I recall that he’s actually a dead serial killer and step forward, nod to Rasmussen. “Sir.”

It’s the wife that comes over, though, chubby face blotched bright red and glassy eyes. “Thank you,” she chokes, putting out a hand. I take and shake, trying to stay professional.

Then she turns to Dean and he stares at her like a man transfixed, face split wide open, eyes half-fascinated and half-terrified. “Thank you,” she whispers, and touches his hand.

His fingers curl slowly around hers, the automatic gesture of a child, and I step in for both their sakes. “Ma’am,” I say in a gentle-but-firm tone usually reserved for doggies, strippers, and other wild creatures, “you’re daughter’s on her way to the hospital. She’s gonna be okay, but she needs you. Get goin’.”

Mrs. Rasmussen blinks and swallows hard. Then she goes scrabbling for her purse and I almost groan. Someone get this poor woman out of here. “Ma’am,” I say again, fighting to keep my voice in a steady rolling cadence designed to sooth and smooth. “We don’t want your money. The state of Texas will pay our bills just fine.”

She grips her wallet, staring at me, then deflates. Finally, finally, her husband catches her elbow, pulls her back against him. She goes easy and puts her face against his chest, shaking so bad it’s practically a vibration in the air. He looks over the top of her hair at me, Dean. “Thank you,” he says low in his throat.

I don’t know what Dean’s face looks like now, but I reach out and touch his arm. We walk out of the house together after the Rasmussens, watch as they pull away in the backseat of a patrol car.

Then and only then do I move across the grass, down the sidewalk to the street where Hosley sits on a curb, his voice going hoarse from the steady stream of excrement he’s kept up all this time.

Dean follows me. The uniforms surrounding Hosley look at my face and move back a bit.

They know a hardcore two-oh when they see her.

“Hello, Brian Hosley.”

He pauses and squints up at me through swollen eyes. “Who the fuck are you, cunt?”

I crouch down on the pavement so he won’t have to crane his neck. Red and white flashes and the refracted beams of headlights cast jagged shadows over both of us. “I’m the cunt that’s ended your life, Brian Hosley. You’re going to die screaming and begging.”

He sneers, revealing a broken tooth. “Ya’ll heard that?” he asks of the surrounding ring. “She threatened me. Ya’ll heard it. My lawyer’s gonna nail you wide open, cunt.”

“Brian Hosley,” I say with infinite patience and not an ounce of rage, “you raped and sodomized the underage daughter of a state trooper in the great state of Texas. That’s--what, boys?” I cast my own glance around the circle. “20, 30 years, minimum? Doesn’t matter, I guess. Either way, it’s death.”

Something of that gets through to him. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

I laugh, gently, kindly. “You ever hear of the Barry Telford Unit, Brian Hosley? It ain’t far from here, ‘bout thirty miles due East. Cozy little spot. Known to cons and cops everywhere as Hell on Earth. There ain’t man nor beast that don’t quiver at the door, and it’s all downhill from there, my friend.” The ground is below me and air all around. I am steady; he’s the one falling now. I rock forward on my toes and lower my voice to a whisper. “Do you have… _any_ idea… what they do to kiddie rapists in Barry Telford?”

I can’t see his face too well, someone’s blocking the light. Don’t matter: he’s a ghost anyhow. I drop back on my heels, get to my feet. “The phrase ‘what goes around comes around’ springs to mind. I’d tell you not to drop the soap, but…” I laugh again, “where you’re goin’, I don’t think it’s gonna matter either way. You’re gonna die screaming, Brian Hosley.”

I turn and find Dean. The two-oh in his eyes looks right back at mine. I walk past him down the street and after a few seconds, the heavy tread of his boots follow mine. I take a breath and tell him without looking, “The girl will live. I did.”

He doesn’t say anything back… too big, too soon to expect a response. But it’s a line, a thin, stretched line trying to hold him in place. His own broke long ago and damn if I know how he survived the fall.

Back in the car with my back against leather I look out the windshield at the tableau of grim-faced men and flashing light. “Just another day in paradise, brother.”

Dean looks, nods, and pulls the fuck out.

 

Chapter 9: R&R

The beautiful machine of veins, skin and organs is instantly fucked up by the wet tear of flesh. Bile and blood go where they shouldn’t. The artist ( _Hosley, that fucking Navajo skin-thing_ ) tears apart the machine, painting his hatred of its order all over my clothes in red. I want to ask him why, why fuck up such a magnificent assembly of flesh and bone, why _do_ that, _WHY_ , and then I realize that I’m dreaming and it feels like I’m stepping backwards out of my own head as I drag myself awake.

 _Shit_. I kick free of sheets and sit up, feeling my head spin.

There’s a pair of legs in bed with me, long and curvy. They had strolled across the parking lot the night before, caught my eye as Dean checked us in. Our feet had dovetailed until hers took a detour and hooked over my shoulders. Helen, a businesswoman, so far in the closet she had the door locked with a wedding ring. She’d made me stop yanking down her pants long enough to lick her finger and peel off the bit of gold. I’d be lying if I said the little gesture hadn’t been a turn-on, like I was something dangerous that could burn through metal. Whatever, she made the vow, she makes the lie. I don’t feel guilty about it, nor about the hard fuck I gave her, forcing moans and gasps out of her lips. There are dark bruises on her tits and shoulders in the shape of my teeth, red stripes on her thighs and lower back from my blunt nails. She’ll probably screw those up in her brain as punishment, one more reason to repress. I shake my head and slide into bra and boxers, carrying the rest of my clothes under one arm as I leave.

It’s early yet but the Texas sun greets me with a 90-degree sunrise. Damned if I can remember which room we’re in, but there’s a keycard in the pocket of my jeans. I go down the line of doors, quietly trying one after another until something clicks. I push inside into darkness, kicking it shut behind me.

Dean, not to my surprise, is buck-naked and lying facedown in bed. The equally-nude girl in the bathroom freezes, her mouth half-painted with lipstick and the tube still in her hand. I wave to her. “Hi.”

She’s hot and I am not at all opposed to sloppy seconds. But she clearly pegs me as the girlfriend of the guy who just fucked her through the mattress. The open door casts a quick flash of dazzling sunlight into the room as she darts out. Dean rolls over onto his back to squint after the freaked-out female.

“Cover up,” I say, tossing my stuff onto the floor and heading for the bathroom. “You’re scaring the lesbians.”

He chuckles throatily, pulls the sheet over himself and flops back down.

In the bathroom I scrub at my face, wipe off the businesswoman’s smell while I think about the dream. Haven’t seen Reese dying in a while, and it takes me a minute to think of why. That dog, underneath the steps of Rasmussen’s house, its throat cut. _Damn_. I shake the thought away and turn off the faucet, head back out into the bedroom. “Hey.”

Dean grunts in response, doesn’t open his eyes.

“Did you at any point fuck her on this other bed?”

“No,” he murmurs burrily.

“Good.” I climb into the sheets and go back to sleep.

It’s about two in the afternoon before sleep runs out again. I stretch it long as possible, wanting to give him time to get his head screwed back on. And yeah, the pause button is for my own sake too: we both needed a break and a solid fuck-fest after last night, burn out the rush in the least destructive way possible. Been a while since I’ve had that much rage clawing at the underside of my skin and it ain’t something you can carry around with you.

Still, life goes on. Skips to tail, girls to nail. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and put my feet on the carpet. Dean’s already up, sitting cross-legged on his bed, television turned down low and a coffee cup in hand. His face shows nothing of the night before, all amiable smile and rested calm. “Morning, sunshine.”

Oh, he’s good. But I’m better. “Morning. Fuck well?”

I score a point of surprise, but then he scoff/laughs (sclaughs? Oh, Jesus, I did _not_ just invent a new word to explain this guy). “Yeah. She had a little, ah, ring…” he waves a hand in the direction of his crotch. “Man, whoever invented those things needs a medal.”

I scoot back and put my shoulders against the headboard, watching the cartoons on TV. Christ, it’s Saturday. “Thaaat would be the Greeks, brother. Inventors of geometry, democracy, and female genital piercings. We owe them _so_ much.”

He raises a toast to that, finishes the coffee in a gulp. “So,” he says, switching off the TV and rising to toss the cup at the garbage can. “What now? Wait for a check in the mail?”

“We hang around Texarkana until the cops let us know that they don’t need any further statements from us. Normally we could then petition to have the skip remanded to our custody, but given that he’s an escaped convict, he’ll be extradited to Arkansas automatically. They pay our bounty. Then it’s up to the states to decide what to do with him. He’s got two more years in Arkansas, after which I imagine they’ll be all too happy to hand him over to be tried in Texas.”

Dean’s eyes glint. “Is Barry Telford really as bad as you said?”

I tilt my head back, rest it on the wall. “Most prisons have a death row. Barry Telford _is_ the row.”

He nods once, satisfied, and puts away the Glare of Righteous Fury ™. “So when can we expect to be rich?”

“Probably a couple weeks. They’ve got my cell number, so after Arkansas processes it, we can go to Little Rock and pick up the check.”

He cocks his head at me, eyes very slightly narrowed. “Can’t hang around here two weeks, sweetheart. Got scary things to hunt.”

I heft myself sideways out of bed. “Don’t we all, brother. But the Texarkana police aren’t gonna take kindly to us skipping town when they told us to stay put. So we’re looking at six days local.” I shrug _what you gonna do?_ and root through my duffel bag. “Personally, I’m looking forward to a little laundry time myself. Care to join me?”

Twenty minutes later we sit atop a pair of washing machines in our underwear. Dean smiles to the middle-aged lady behind the counter, and between golden-boy looks and the scars, he’s got every base covered from ‘Fuck Me Now’ to ‘Feed Me Soup.’

“How old are you?” I ask curiously.

He blinks, has to think about it. “Um… thirty… two.” His face twists, suddenly appalled. “Jesus.”

“Sneaks up on ya, huh? I’ll be twenty-nine in August.”

Dean stares at the dryer in front of him like there’s eternal truth inside instead of stained jeans. “Never thought I’d see thirty,” he mutters, half to himself.

Ugly fucking thought, but I’ve had it before myself. “The Lord doth work in mysterious ways, brother, and He’s an ironic bastard to boot.”

Dean considers me, a faint line drawn between his brows. In this light, fully rested, I can see the wrinkles in his face, the familiar furrow of thought or anger. Along the corners of his eyes are fainter crinkles, used less often. He has one of those faces that could pass for his twenties at 40 or 40 in his teens, all depending on his mood. A smile would take away ten years. “Do you actually believe in all that?” he asks, bringing my attention back around. “God, I mean.”

“Yes,” I answer resoundingly. “You?”

He shrugs uncomfortably, looking away. “Dunno. I guess… I don’t _not_ believe, but…” He shrugs again.

I tilt my head. “All that time you spend with demons and you don’t believe in God?”

“I guess,” he says, and the line between his eyes has vanished but he still looks so damn old, “I’ve never had the feeling there was anyone fighting _with_ me.”

I study his profile, stricken by that thought. My line of work, I get to ruminate on the dregs of humanity, the piss and shit of mankind, and I’ve wondered sometimes whether we weren’t overdue for another flood from Noah. Him, he gets the same deal, but on a cosmic level.

The buzzer on a washing machine goes off. I hop down, flip it open. “You got family?”

It’s a risky proposition and I focus mostly on the clothes. Out of the corner of my eye, Dean is unmoving. “I got people related to me. Dad… brother. They live up in Washington state. Don’t know if I’d call them family anymore, though.”

I flop the clothes into a dryer, slam the door shut. “Why not?”

I can practically hear the _chunk-chunk_ of defenses falling into place. “Just family stuff, y’know. Teased my little brother too much, didn’t put the toilet seat down, talked about Fight Club…”

I concede that round with a chuckle, but add, “The contact of mine, the one who put this all together… Martha Collins, lives in Houston. Not related, but she’s family.”

He has nothing to say to that and I need to lighten the mood ASAP. The dryer thumps to life and I put my back against it. “So, now the important questions: blonde or brunette?”

He keeps up, I’ll give him that. “You got something against redheads, Watson?”

“Fuck yeah. Skin’s too pale. If I put a bruise on one, it looks like a huge neon sign. Which, y’know, can be hot, but tends to irritate shotgun-wielding fathers. Answer the question, Winchester.”

He lounges as best one can lounge atop a washing machine. “See, why d’ya have to choose between God’s wonderful creations? Why can you not simply enjoy _every--single--woman_ in her own unique and special way?”

“Oh,” I say with a grin, “I do, brother. I do.”

 

Chapter 10: A Non-Sexual Seduction in Three Easy Steps

_A beginner’s guide to non-sexual seduction._

_Step 1. Initiate. Let’s dance, motherfucker._

In the motel room we change into fresh, sweet-smelling clothes. I comment lightly on the scars littering his back. “You got plans on reaching forty, brother?”

Dean turns a shirt over in his hands, smirking at the fabric. “Well, I’ve been stabbed, shot, poisoned, choked, clawed, bitten, run over, and thrown into more walls than a pro-wrestler. I think eventually they’ll stop trying.”

I lean against the doorjamb, already dressed. “C’mon, Superman, the womenfolk grow restless. God, men always take so long getting ready.”

He chucks a wad of still-warm clothing at me. I catch it, realize they’re his boxers, and drop them with a shriek. “ _Fuck!_ Oh, you did _not_ just throw your dirty man-underwear at me!”

Dean stares. “They’re _clean_.”

“They’ve been near a _penis_ ,” I exclaim, wiping my hand on the drab wallpaper. “They’ll never be clean.”

“Oh shut up, womenfolk,” but he’s smiling.

_Step two: Entice. This is tricky, ‘cause nothing entices men like sex. So you gotta draw the lines._

Between the motel room and the bar he casts me a couple of sideways looks, half-flirting and half-confused. I doubt he’s ever been non-sexually seduced before and he’s really got no clue what to do with me. One minute he grins easily at my challenge of tequila and the next second he fumbles in surprise when I saddle a curly brunette for body shots.

The brunette’s got some shorts so tight I doubt she can bend over, and kicks her sandals off when I lift her up to sit on the bar. She sees Dean and sparks: on a sober day, with a Christian mommy leaning over her shoulder she’d never swing my way. But his presence makes it okay, makes it two girls cock-teasing the guy, or so she thinks.

 _Oh, honey_ , I think, _you’ve got another idea comin’._ “Bi when high,” I say in Dean’s ear when she starts dancing on the bar top.

He squints back, dubious but amused. “You’re on.”

About twenty minutes later she and I are in the bathroom, her knee hooked over my shoulder and back arching against the wall. Her hips buck against my mouth, hitting my nose. I reach up and shove her against the dirty tiles with one hand on her belly. She loses her balance and staggers, held up by my hands and mouth, pinned helpless. It only takes a few more vowels drawn with my tongue and then she keens loud and long.

Dean, when I come back out, has a concessionary shot already lined up. “That was quick,” he says loud over the music, and his cheeks show just the tiniest bit of pink. _Blushing_. Jesus. Can men still blush?

I toss the shot back, slam it down, and grin. “Your turn,” I announce in challenge, and jerk my chin over his shoulder to the black-haired bartender.

_Step three: Invite. This is the make-it-or-break-it step and more often than not, luck rules the day._

We’ve had enough to drink that I walk (flop) to the wrong car in the parking lot. “Jesus, woman,” Dean scowls. “That isn’t even America-made. Gimme some… ”

“Credit?”

“Yeah. Wow, I’m wasted.” He claps me on the shoulder and it throws us both off balance for a moment. “You can sure pack ‘em away, for a chick your size.”

“Cheers. I’m kinda inclined to get killed tonight, though, I don’t think I want to be alive to face the dawn. Next time, let’s drink vodka… tequila’s such a bitch.”

He keeps walking along beside me, then slows and slows to a stop. Stands looking out over the windshields of pickups. The cicada chorus shrieks around us. “Um, Dean, I’d prefer to get indoors before we’re carried away by mosquitoes.”

The creak of leather and a scuffle of gravel tell me that he’s turned toward me in the dark. I’m drunk enough that it’s hard to focus. “What do you want?” he asks, low and slurry and scratchy.

Brains veer just as often as cars when the owner is drunk. I try to bring mine around quick, ‘cause this is happening a bit sooner than I expected. “Well first, there’s the issue of giant roving bands of bloodsucking mosquitoes. And then I’d like to go back and find out if that businesswoman Heather is still around. But after that,” and I wish I was .01 BAC more sober for this, “I’d like to be your partner. Or you mine. Whatever.”

I can practically feel him blink. “What, you mean like… bounty hunting?”

“And freaky hunting, yeah. Both. We can trade off.” I try to keep my voice even and not too fast, ‘cause I’ve thought a lot of this through but he needs time to get it all. “You said yourself that hunting shapeshifters doesn’t pay the bills. So… we find hunts close to each other. If you hear about a werewolf in Florida, I can look up whatever skips are in the area and we can nail two birds at once. Knock off bad guys on both sides, earn some cash.”

“There aren’t any werewolves in Florida,” Dean says distantly. “Too warm.”

His tone’s hard to read. Wish to Hell this wasn’t happening in a dark parking lot where I can’t see his face. “Awright, so no werewolves. Bog monsters. Whatever’s out there. Listen, we made a Hell of a team back there.”

There’s just _something_ in what I’ve said, ‘cause he straightens up and though I can’t see his face but I can read denial in the outline of his shoulders. I try to switch tracks mentally, but my brain is slow and I don’t think I’m going to make it.

And then God, that glorious ironic bastard, sends a giant roving band of bloodsucking vampires to attack us.

 

Chapter 11: Almost Human

I wake up to a headache that has nothing to do with tequila and everything to do with the hit that knocked me flat onto gravel. I can feel where gravel has scraped the top layer from my palms. Can’t see them, though. They’re kinda busy being tied behind me. To a pole, feels like.

Someone’s talking and I drag my ears awake in time to hear a woman’s low voice purring, “… gonna cut her apart, take out her guts. You wanna see your girlfriend’s intestines, you fuck? Want me to wrap them around your neck? Your little girl’s gonna die screaming.”

It occurs to me suddenly that a) the psycho bitch in question is talking to Dean (I can see him just there, tied to his own pole with his legs splayed out in front of him on the barn-- _barn?_ \--floor) and b) they’re probably talking about me. I open my mouth to protest the whole intestinal necklace plan, but what comes out is, “Hey, I’m not his girlfriend.”

‘Cause apparently I’d rather have my insides on the outside than let any motherfucker insinuate that I like dick.

She turns around--and oh, shit, her eyes are glowing. “Fuck, not again,” I groan, then remember that Dean said shapeshifter eyes glowed yellow, not the silver flashes that are going on in her peepers.

She saunters over to me, hips swinging. I try to track her movements, tilting my head back until it bumps against wood. “So what are you, then?” she asks and drops down to straddle my legs. Apparently something there is hurt, too, ‘cause pain goes up my thigh as she grinds into it. In the peripheral, I see movement: four backup, three guys and one girl, not counting Psycho Bitch. Except they’re not girls and guys at all, they’re glimmery-eyed sharks, circling us and licking their chops.

I lick my own lips and taste blood. Her eyes follow the movement and light up a little more. _Shit_. “I’m a dyke,” I growl in what I hope is a dangerous tone, “what the fuck are _you_?” Her lips pull back and my, what big teeth she… oh. “Oh. Ohhh-ho. Oh. Fuck.”

“You know how I told you there were vampires, Kimmy?” Dean calls out casually, like we’re discussing cars.

“Yeah, I got that, thanks,” I call back. “Sorry,” I add to Psycho Bitch, “this whole ‘creatures of the night’ thing is kinda new to me. Name’s Kim. Kim Watson, baby, what’s yours?”

Her lips curl like a hyena’s, not the most attractive facial expression for her. Pity, she’d be pretty hot otherwise… excluding the freaky eyes and threats to my digestive system. “Kate. He ever tell you about me?”

“Can’t say he has, but then again, I only met the guy three days ago. We hadn’t exactly gotten around to discussing vengeful ex-girlfriends yet.”

One of the underlings snorts. Right, so vampires have a sense of humor. And Kate is eyeing me with a bit more than plain ‘juicy cheeseburger’ hunger. Hopefully _Interview With A Vampire_ was right and vampires originate from humans _. C’mon, Tom Cruise, you crazy fuck, don’t fail me now._ ‘Cause humans I can deal with, at least temporarily. And beyond that I’m gonna have to have faith.

“So,” I say aloud. “Ya’ll here to deliver divorce papers or something?”

Kate’s mouth curls again and then she rises fast, faster than a human. “Bit of history,” she snarls, and kicks my leg, the cunt. I hiss between my teeth but do not look away. She smirks and turns, saunters over to Dean. “Bit of payback. Our boy here, he owes me.” Her fingers hook in Dean’s jaw and cheek, driving in cruelly. He glares up at her, tight-lipped and bloody from the cut on his eyebrow. “He and his daddy and his little brother, they killed half my coven. They killed my _mate_.” The fingers twist and blood drips onto Dean’s shirt in splotches. “Didja think we wouldn’t track you down, you dumb fuck? When a vampire gets your scent, they get it _forever_. I’ve been looking for you for a long, long time.”

She must be pressing on a windpipe or a vein ‘cause Dean’s eyes flutter. I pull up everything I’ve got and call out to the larger group, “And the rest of ya’ll? He kill all your hubbies too?”

And oh Mother Mary with a drunk Frenchman, I am so damned good sometimes. A subtle shift in the other four draws my eyes to some leather-clad cocksucker who stands a little apart. He’s got Big Dick Alpha Male written all over him and his eyes narrow at my comment.

Kate the Psycho Bitch lets go of Dean and straightens. “This is my new coven.” She smiles wide at them and one of the guys, clearly her lapdog, smiles back. Big Dick does not.

Dean’s voice is hoarse… she musta hit a windpipe. “Nice digs you guys got here. Better than the previous rat-infested barn you were living in.”

She turns back around and I want to groan. _Dean, shut_ up _this is not your department_. “Awright,” I say to the others, giving them an opportunity to answer. “So ya’ll are following Mommy’s lead. You looking to recruit or something?”

Big Dick starts to talk but then Kate the PB steps right in and takes away his opportunity. Dumb Psycho Bitch. “Oh no,” she purrs languidly. “This fuck killed my mate. He’s gonna die watching us drink his blood.”

I cock my head, mouth pursed as if considering that. “Okay then. Where do I fall in this? I mean, last I checked I haven’t knocked off any vampires lately. You lot are the first I’ve ever even seen. And I gotta say, I’m not all that impressed.”

Lapdog gives a little indignant start. “You fucking idiot. We can tear you apart… it’s so easy. Or you’ll grow old and wither into nothingness.” He leans down, getting into the melodrama of the moment. I’d bet he was an Anne Rice fan as a human. “ _You_ are impermanent, a stain, a passing breeze. _We_ are eternal.”

The snorter snorts again faintly, but Kate steps forward to sling an arm over Lapdog’s shoulder. “We live forever, exactly like this. No disease, no aging. Perfect, forever.”

“Hm.” I do the whole pursed-lips thing again. “Doesn’t sound that bad. What’s your dental plan like?”

Kate’s eyes narrow at me, studying. “You really think we’d spare you?”

I meet her gaze and Jesus I have faith in thee. “Maybe not out of the goodness of your cold black hearts. But I might be able to make you a deal.”

Her brow arches. “What the hell do you got that I could want?”

“You said that his dad and brother were involved.” I rest my head on the post, look at her with half-closed eyes. “I know where to find them.”

The hyena smile drops off her face and she stares down at me, still. “Bullshit,” spits Big Dick, scowling. “You’re lying, I can tell--”

“Junior,” I interrupt with infinite patience. “Shut the fuck up. Mommy and I are talking.” He shuts his fanged mouth hard (ouch) and I roll my head back to Kate the DPB. “He told me where they are. Well, general vicinity anyway.”

“You fucking bitch!” Dean’s hoarse voice shouts from beyond Kate. “Don’t you dare fucking tell them, I’ll kill you, I’ll ki--”

Oh, come on, _come on_.The other chick, who’s been quiet up to this point, slugs Dean hard. I can only hope that he’s faking, and hold Kate’s eyes.

“ _How_ general a vicinity?” she asks, low and longing.

“First, let’s discuss the terms. You untie me, gimme a cell and a car. One of your little kiddies gets in the car with me. I drive two miles away, call you up, point you in the right direction. Kiddie gets out of the car, I drive away. No harm, no foul, sayonara. You get to wreck your little vendetta and I get to head home with my intestines intact.”

She studies me, eyes shuttered. Nearby, Big Dick fumes and finally breaks out. “She’s lying, Kate. She’s lying! I can totally tell, why can’t you?”

Kate’s head snaps in his direction. “Did I _ask_ for your opinion, Walt?” ( _A vampire named Walt?_ )

“So what, I’m just supposed to stand here while you get us all killed?” he shouts. “While you get someone _else_ killed?”

“Don’t you dare talk to her that way!” shrieks Lapdog.

“Quiet, Andrew!” Kate snaps. ( _Andrew?_ ) To Big Dick she grits out, “If you can’t take orders from me, then I suggest you leave this coven. And _you_ ,” she spins back to me, “are stalling.”

Lord Jesus, I have had faith. Please let it be enough. “Yes, I am stalling. I’ve been stalling since I woke the fuck up. I’m stalling right _now_ with this big fucking speech I’m about to make. ‘Cause you lot can take your eternal darkness and shove it up your collective asses. I’m not telling you jack shit and you know why? ‘Cause there’s no way in _Hell_ I’m gonna lose to a bunch of spineless,” I jerk my chin at Big Dick, “overly dramatic,” Lapdog, “and just plain _stupid_ fucks like you. I’ve had your numbers since before I was _born_ , you halfwit jerkoffs, so you know the only thing I’m left wondering? Have I talked and bargained and stalled long enough for Dean to figure out how to get us the fuck out of this shit-smelling barn?”

I take a breath. “So what’ll it be, Dean?”

There’s a twist and a grunt and one body drops and another rises. _Lord Jesus, I have had faith_.

Dean comes up swinging, hits Kate just as she turns. It doesn’t do much, just staggers her, except then Dean brings something to his mouth and _he breathes fire on her_.

She catches alight almost instantly, shrieking. Big Dick lunges at Dean but gets caught up in Lapdog, who is frantically beating at Kate. Snorter runs at him from the other side.

Dean drops the bottle of tequila he had hidden in his jacket onto the ground, where it shatters. Then he drops his lighter, too.

Did I mention that the barn’s dirty floor is covered with hay? _Dry_ hay. In Texas. In July.

They are a _stupid_ roving band of vampires.

Things catch light like a candle being blown out in reverse. I flail my feet, trying to keep them from the flames. “Little help?” I shout.

Dean has scooped up the bottle’s shattered neck, uses it to slash at Snorter’s face. He shrieks, clutching an eye, and Dean kicks him in the balls. That seems to work on vampires, too, and then he’s at my shoulder, yanking the rope lose and dragging me up.

“Not bad,” he shouts in my ear, and he’s fucking _laughing_ , the maniac.

“You too!” I shout back, never to be outdone. “We gonna burn to death?”

“Let’s find out.”

Hunched together against the flames, we race blindly along, tripping over random shit. Dean pauses once to reach up and grab something off the wall. Then there’s an exit and clean night air.

I get in a couple of breaths before Big Dick lunges at my face, fangs out.

“DROP!” Dean shouts behind me and I do. There’s a whistle and a thunk and then a headless body hits the ground next to me. I look up and Dean grins, holding the scythe one-handed over his shoulder like a punkass Grim Reaper.

“Stop posing!” I shriek, and we run for it.

In the fifteen-mile trek back to civilization, adrenaline wears off and we’re both hurting something fierce, talking to keep ourselves conscious against mutual concussions. “Godammit,” Dean moans, “I fucked up my coat when I burned through the rope.”

I glance at where the lighter had passed over his wrists, freeing him. “Dean, you burned your fucking _skin_.”

“Skin will heal.” He stares mournfully at the scorched cuffs.

“Idiot.”

“Bitch.”

We walk a while further until a joyful, wonderful, hilarious thought occurs to me. “Hey, Dean.”

“Yeah?”

“Did Lapdog make it out?”

“Who?”

“The one that had his nose up Dumb Psycho Bitch’s butt.”

“Oh, um… yeah, I think he might have. Why?”

Lord Jesus, I have had faith. “You think he’s got my scent now?”

Dean stops again, just like the parking lot. “Maybe,” he allows after a moment. “Probably.”

I nod, fold my arms. “Well, then, I guess you’d better teach me how to defend myself against vampires.”

Dean stares. He sees it. He swears loudly, laughing under the dawn sky. He _knows_. “No getting rid of you now, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Godammit,” but he’s practically singing.

 

Chapter 12: Training Days

In Arkansas we pick up the bail bond for Hosley. It’s bigger than expected: we can probably thank Texas for that. Dean doesn’t want the bonus and neither do I, so it goes to Martha and Bartlett who both have young’uns to look after. Still, we leave Little Rock with upward of $25,000 each and solid love between us and the uniformed folks of both Texas and Arkansas.

“Always get along with the locals,” I tell Dean and he pulls a face, but nods. He drives with one hand; the other hand fingers an edge of the check. Once it goes into the bank he relaxes and stares at the deposit slip like he’s never seen that many numbers.

-o-

In Louisiana we slog through a marsh and I wind up with leeches in places that I don’t even want to _talk_ about.

Something rises up out of the muck; it looks and smells like waking death. Dean barely glances at it, bent over his lap and talking to me while putrid death lumbers closer. “Salt works on most stuff, holy water on what’s purely demonic, but sometimes Mother Nature just needs a quick… punch… in the mouth.”

He finishes whatever the fuck he was doing just as the bog thingy reaches out a rotting limb. Dean flips around to fire the shotgun straight into its face and the thing’s head explodes in a foul-smelling fountain. The body stumbles, sways, and tips slowly backwards to land in the water with a splash.

Dean stands up, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Bleach,” he says cheerfully, showing me the inside of the gun. “Your basic disinfectant packed into slugs, just like the salt rounds. Kills 99.9% of all bacteria, gets your whites whiter, and is handy for cleansing most rot-infested swamp or cave dwellers.”

He pauses and looks sideways at me, lips twitching. “You okay?”

I swipe a hand across my mouth and eye the swamp matter on my fingers. “Peachy.”

-o-

In Georgia we get settled at a high table with a couple of beers. I lift mine to my mouth, hiding my lips. “He’s at the bar, third from the right, watching the game.”

Dean almost turns and I set my drink down hard. He corrects himself and flushes, tossing me an irritated, apologetic look. But then he shifts around until he can watch our skip in the mirror above the bar. The boy catches on quick. I take a pull from the beer, wipe my mouth. “Well?”

“Looks pretty damn drunk.”

“Look again.”

His eyes flick in my direction, startled, then refocus. The skip’s intoxicated, no doubt about it: his movements are clumsy and he’s made no friends at the bar with his slurred arguments. But there’s just the one glass sitting in front of him and the bar before him presents no used napkins or damp rings from previous drinks.

Dean pivots his body back around to me, takes a swig. “Drugs?”

“Yup. Looks like pills, some downers. Those’ll last him about another five hours or so. Then he’ll be wanting more.”

“So do we take him down now while he’s whacked out?”

I twirl my forefinger in the air. “Patience, brother. Most drug users get their hook-ups from friends.”

He lights up. “Which means when he runs out of juice, he’ll lead us back to the other skip.” I raise my bottle and he grins, clinks his against mine. “Sweet.”

-o-

I’m absolute shit at Latin, but he grimly forces the language down my throat. “Best weapon you can have next to a flamethrower.” He also makes me study his journal (“the second edition” he reports with equal amount of pride and gloominess). I read through it while propped up on hotel pillows and god _damn_ the world is a freaky fucking place. There are whole decades in this thing and in Virginia I buy note cards at a gas station. Dean snorts in amusement, but later he helps me categorize them by ‘Spirits,’ ‘Demons,’ ‘Fucked-Up Human Things,’ and ‘Mother Nature Sucks.’

The first half of the journal is in someone else’s handwriting. “Who had this before you?”

He barely pauses. “My old man.”

He never mentions his not-family except in the most random ways. When a Black Dog ( _‘Mother Nature Sucks’; found: primarily in forest and mountain areas of Canada and the Western US; killed by: anything you have handy_ ) takes a bite out of his leg in Wyoming, Dean groans and leaks blood all over the bathtub. He also mutters in a low chuckle, “Godammit, Sam.”

“Who’s Sammy?” I ask, as much to keep him awake as out of curiosity.

He coughs, startled. “I was just thinking,” he goes on after a moment, “of the last Black Dog I saw. Big fucker in Montana, went after my little brother’s throat. Sam. I stepped in front of him and it almost took my arm off.” His unsteady hands roll up one sleeve to show me the rough skin around his armpit.

I wrap his bare calf in a field dressing and elevate it on the edge of the bathtub. “Hope he kicked your ass for that.”

He barks a weak laugh. “Yeah… yeah, he tried.”

We never go up to Washington state.

-o-

In Nevada I call up my friend Eddie and tell him I’ve got a body that needs a face. Eddie works for The Man: an old-time CIA agent that moved into the quieter FBI circuit. He’s as straight-laced as they come, never does side jobs. Which means he never does side jobs for anyone except me.

I take Dean to Eddie’s house, some ridiculous place with a fake waterfall out front that his Hollywood-director daughter bought him. Dean eyes the flamingos on the lawn but makes no comment.

Inside, Eddie scans him, then squares off with me. “You vouch for him?”

I meet his left eye. The right one is glass. “Yeah.”

We walk out with a social security card, a birth certificate, several years of IRS tax records, a passport, and even a high school diploma, all in the name of Dean Thompson. By the car, I stop and grab the back of his neck. “I vouched for you, motherfucker.”

His eyebrows climb his forehead, but he gets it. He cuts up the bad plastic and all the fake IDs that could get us into trouble. Learns to bite his tongue around law enforcement types, too, and I can tell that hurts. “Gahhhh,” he moans one night in Nebraska after leaving the office of a defiantly clueless sheriff who refused to admit that young women found hanging upside down in trees might be a little _odd_. “Just… gahhhh!”

“That’s what alcohol is for, dear,” I murmur, patting him on the shoulder.

-o-

At first Dean’s cautious, stays out instead of bringing girls back to the room. For all the tail-chasing, he’s something of a gentleman.

‘Course, I’m no lady, so in San Francisco I break the ice by getting blindly drunk with some curvy little Italian number and dragging her back to the hotel. She keeps trying to teach me dirty words in her language, but my tongue’s got other uses at the moment, drawing wet lines against the top of her breasts exposed by a low-cut top. I yank the fabric down a bit and she’s got these perfect nipples, small and sweet between my teeth. She gets gaspy then, murmuring all kinds of crazy shit that might make even _me_ blush if I knew what the fuck she was saying. I don’t know if I should fuck more Italians or what, but she just _gives_ _in_ , does whatever I want her to do. She rubs herself off, begs, screams, bends over and lets me fuck her with a dildo. She’s a little sexual dynamo and I pass out at about 2 AM, well and truly fucked to sleep.

Dean reports to me later that he came home at about 3 AM from his own misadventures, saw the two of us snoring, and passed out. He was awakened half an hour later when our little Italian friend got up, went to the bathroom, pissed, came back out, and either mistook Dean’s bed for mine or was ready for round two on the other side of the fence. She goes crawling into bed with him and apparently had his cock in her mouth before he was even half-conscious.

I wake up very briefly to hear a couple of surprised groans, decide that all is right in the world, and go back to sleep.

When I roll out of bed the next morning the Italian is, alas, not around. Dean sits downstairs in the diner, hair tousled and lips quirking. I take a seat across from him and we regard each other in reverential silence.

The waitress drops two cups of coffee without asking, moves on. I lift my cup. “God bless Italy.”

He laughs so hard he has to put his face down on the table to muffle the noise. I’m not far behind.

-o-

In New Mexico we track down a balding, divorced father of three who embezzled three grand to pay off his mortgage. When he sees us, for a second his eyes look like they belong to a much younger man who could run for it. Then the rest of his body catches up and his shoulders slump. “Shit,” he mutters brokenly, and cries in the back seat as we take him in.

Dean sits in the driver’s seat, his mouth tight. I can tell he hates the way the guy doesn’t fight at all, just stares with watery defeated eyes.

“He made himself that way,” I say when we leave town. “Everyone chooses what they are, brother. We always, _always_ have a choice.”

His eyes still look dark, but after a minute he nods.

-o-

The more Dean hurts, the more he talks. Quips, rejoinders, and non-sequitors hurled scattershot like a wounded boxer swinging blind. In Oklahoma we run across some psycho-fuck sorcerer (combination of ‘Spirits’ and ‘Fucked-Up Human Things’) that taps into people’s fears and makes them live out their worst nightmares. I suddenly find myself back in New Mexico with blood splattering all over my face, while next to me, Dean screams and screams his brother’s name. Afterwards we each patch up, wash the sorcerer’s blood off our clothes, and Dean spends two hours cracking wise about everything from infomercials to my haircut. I grit my teeth and bear it, ‘cause it’s his way of dealing.

In South Dakota we almost take each other’s heads off during an around-the-clock-two-day hunt of an ancient Indian legend. A ghost (‘Fucked-Up Human Things’) with gouged-out eyes drives young men to murder and Dean almost blows my head off before he forcibly drags his arm around to point the gun at his own temple. I’d be kinda verklempt that he’d rather die than kill me if I weren’t so busy tackling his ass to the ground and holding him there between pinched knees. Eventually we summon the ghost’s nemesis, some kinda spirit guardian, and stagger back to the car with Dean cussing and me screaming at him.

He brings me baked goods the next morning and smirks awkwardly. “Nothing says ‘I’m sorry for almost shooting you in the forehead’ like poppyseed muffins, huh?”

I rejoin, “No, the appropriate muffins to apologize for homicidal tendencies are blueberry. Get it right, sheesh,” and we’re okay.

-o-

In Tennessee Dean tries to teach me how to play pool. I suck pretty hard at it and spend most of the game snarking about long, pointy objects being used to poke balls. Dean bites his lip and leans over the table for another shot while the third player flushes and tries to hold his pool cue in a non-suggestive way.

It’s not something we talked about doing beforehand but he’s there and I’m there and we’re _both_ running the hustle before the money’s even on the table. Afterwards Dean slings an arm over my shoulders, waving around the wad of bills and crowing, “Now who said anything about not earning a decent living?”

I grab the wad out of his hand and heft his drunk ass along. “If you puke on me, it’s all over. I will leave your butt here on the side of the road, you hear me?”

“Bullshit,” he slurs. “You love me.” But there’s just a little fear, just a little. It’s burrowed down way inside to eat at his core, and the rest of him has been propped up around this hollow middle for years. To fix it would mean taking him apart piece by piece to get at the inside and I’ve got neither the time nor the skill.

And I don’t know if I need to. ‘Cause he’s hollowed out but so strong. He’s had to be, to hold himself up all these years without a center of gravity.

So it ain’t about fixing him. Never was and never will be. I prop him up and drag him home. “Yeah, brother. Love you lots.”

He laughs triumphantly, then doubles over and vomits right on my boots.

 

Chapter 13: Hi

I’m gonna skip over about half a year now. If you want a quick summary: credit card embezzler, pack of possessed dogs, rich-bitch shoplifter who tries to flirt her way to freedom, fire demon, drug dealer, giant worm, three transvestite prostitutes working as drug mules, quip, rejoinder, quip, rejoinder, pose, and 73 girls between the two of us. It was a busy six months.

By the end of it Dean’s got my number down, more or less. He tosses hotel keys to me without looking, trusting me to be there and catch them. It’s the littlest shit that tells you the most, and a bit of metal flying through the air to my hands expresses the same revelation that drives men to write month-long poems and compose symphonies.

I look forward to having a snowball fight with the Devil on the day Dean whips out some poetry.

So there we are, working together, catching skips and ghosts in equal amounts. I buy a wireless laptop and we trade it off: Dean looks up Anasazi signs while we sit outside the house of a skip’s mother; I look up social security numbers and addresses while we wait for the full moon to rise. I can tell that Dean occasionally gets tired of dealing with the dregs of humanity, but then I’ll get covered head to toe in mastodon drool or something and he kind of shrugs like, _Okay, that’s fair._

We still don’t talk much about history or family, except in drunken anecdotes. His little brother, Sammy, lost his virginity in the Impala’s backseat and Dean had to walk home; his Dad killed five wyverns in one night; his first memory is of eating a grasshopper and Mom yelling at him to spit it out.

When he asks what my first memory is, I pause for a moment and then respond honestly, “Being fucked.”

He stares at me for thirty seconds in dead silence while I plug songs into the juke box.

-o-

There’s this necromancy thing in southern Idaho that gets Dean’s hackles up. Bodies go missing from graveyards and morgues, and it’s fucking _kids_. The dead little tykes show up at school the next day to snatch their screaming classmates. Now, I get ticked off at child endangerment as much as the next person, but Dean is _pissed_. Nuclear-grade rage, people. The Glare of Righteous Fury™ makes its triumphant return.

“Ease off,” I mutter as we leave the sheriff’s office in disgrace, Dean having cursed out half the deputies there for not guarding the school better.

“Do _not_ fucking tell me to ease off,” Dean snaps, yanking his arm away. “If those dumb country fucks had just listened to us yesterday, two kids wouldn’t be missing right now!”

“And if you wind up in jail, a bunch more are goin’ to disappear,” I retort. “So keep your head out of your ass and let’s do our goddamn job.”

He levels out but only takes The Glare™ down from Eternal Pain© to Excruciating Death©. “All right,” he mutters in the car. “A necromancer’s got no power on his own. He needs to borrow it from spirits.”

It’s another mixture of ‘Fucked-Up Human Things’ and ‘Spirits,’ usually the worst combo: I far prefer being able to blow something’s head off without worrying about murder charges. “Takes a lot of time to set that up, right? Not somebody that’s gonna have a full-time job. But why the kids?”

Dean sits back, eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Most necromancers prefer bodies that can do brute labor, guard the altar and shit. There’s got to be something specific about kids with this one.”

I take a breath and ask, “Some kind of sacrifice?”

Dean’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Maybe,” he says eventually. “The blood of children carries a lot of weight in the spirit world. But taking kids from that _one_ classroom draws a lot of attention.”

“So it’s gotta be something about that specific class.” I frown at the grade school’s red bricks.

“Or someone,” Dean murmurs, slowing the car.

There’s a whole row of minivans and SUVs in front of us, tense parents at the wheel. When the bell rings, they surge forward like horses from the gate to take their kids directly from the teachers’ hands.

I watch the cycle of kids and parents pass by on the front sidewalk, orderly and organized except for one mother to the side, pulling her daughter across the lawn. Her body’s hunched over and her head flicks from side to side, scanning. “That one,” I tell Dean, pointing. “She’s avoiding the main walk, keeping her body low, walking between her kid and the street. She’s done this before.”

We get out and speed walk after her. When we catch her on the corner, she pushes her kid behind her with wide eyes. “I have mace,” she gasps. Not threatening to scream, I notice, despite the herd of people not two hundred feet away: she doesn’t want the attention.

Dean and I both keep our distance. “That’s a good thing, ma’am,” I tell her. “Hope you won’t use it on us, though. We’re not gonna hurt you or your girl.”

The kid in question pokes around her mom’s hip with wide eyes. Dean sends her a big reassuring smile and she ducks away, frightened. “What do you want?” the mother asks.

I play a card and take out my license. “We’re bounty hunters, ma’am.”

Her shoulders jump. “You’re here after Floyd?”

I work the card as far as I can. “Could be. He around here?”

She casts a frightened glance at the school. “I didn’t think he would follow us here. I don’t know… how could he have known where…”

“I think you know how he knew,” Dean says softly. His voice holds no recrimination or judgment; he’s a lot better with moms and kids than cops.

She looks between the two of us, wide-eyed. “Floyd was never this powerful before,” she whispers.

Turns out this is the world’s most fucked up custody battle: soccer mom versus necromancer. Ms. Lilly Panders has a wild history of drugs, sex, and Satanism, which she traded in when she got pregnant with Jacqueline. Trouble is, the past’s chasing her down in the form of her ex-lover and the girl’s father, Floyd “Dark Helm” Bomar.

She gives me an old photograph and tears. “I didn’t know this would happen. I just… I wanted a new life, for Jackie.”

Dean’s seated on the floor with the kid, cross-legged among freaky pictures: apparently she’s been having nightmares of an old man with no legs that tries to eat her. When he joins me in the kitchen, Dean mutters, “He’s been trying to get her for a while, pinpoint which kid she is. He’s got it narrowed down to one classroom and he’s closing in on her.”

“So what do we do?”

Dean grins, a rattlesnake smile. “We look for _him_.”

That involves drawing a circle around the girl’s bed and scrying on a city map while she twitches and moans through whatever nightmares her father’s beaming into her brain. When the crystal comes to rest over a park, Dean cranks up the Glare™ back up to Eternal Pain© and Christ, am I glad the kid’s asleep.

“All right, then,” Dean says outside, eyes practically flaming in the dark. “Let’s kill this fucker.”

Of course then we get out to the park and there’s a whole fucking _horde_ of kids, half of them dead and the other half are brain-controlled or something. It’s impossible to tell which ones are which and we’re solidly fucked before the _main_ troops even arrive. They’re the big, beefy altar security that Dean spoke of.

The rest goes poorly.

-o-

I wake up sixteen hours later with a doctor shining his pen light in my eyes. “Where’s ‘Ean?” I slur at him. Shit, I can’t feel my body! Is it even still there? A hand flops up and hits the doctor’s shoulder: it looks like mine, so that’s encouraging. Not paralyzed, just drugged.

“Please stay calm, Ms. Watson. You’ve suffered a moderate concussion and three of your ribs have been bruised.”

“Where’s _Dean_?” I ask again, numb fingers closing on the collar of his jacket. The last thing I remember is hitting the ground while Dean fired round after round, standing straight and tall before the onslaught. The image makes my stomach turn over and I twist to the side. The doc’s quick on the uptake and yanks over a vomit pan.

He waits until I’ve stopped ralphing, then says, “The guy who came in with you disappeared three hours ago.”

It takes me another five hours to get on my feet and by then it’s been a whole nurse shift since Dean vanished from his hospital bed, stitches and all. Fortunately, Lady Luck smiles and the head nurse is a stone-cold bisexual dominatrix. We barely have to look each other in the eye before she pops a surveillance tape in the VCR. Sisterhood is power, bitches.

The tape shows two big, burly men dragging a slumped Dean between them straight out the back door. “They got stopped by a security guard on their way in,” murmurs my new best friend. “Gave their names as Darrell Finch and Evan Krispen. The cops are gonna be here soon,” she adds.

I nod and get my breath in order. “Thanks, babe. You work here all the time?”

She cocks an evaluating brow, looks me head to toe. The eyes of a dom and my skin prickles appreciatively. Fuck, the whole world could be ending and damn if I wouldn’t find three seconds to line up my next lay. “Yeah. All the time.”

“Well, I look forward to having the crap beaten out of me again sometime soon.” _That_ pushes all her buttons just right and her husky laughter follows me down the hall as I limp for freedom.

It’s about a mile from Portneuf Hospital to Ammon Park. The Impala’s gone and god _damn_ Dean’s gonna be pissed. The park is police-taped to Hell and the only reason I’m not in custody right now is that the Pocatello Police have been way too busy sorting through the mess of scared living kids and dead rotting ones left behind in the park. There’s media all over the place still, freaking out about the Night of the Living Dead kidlets, but no Dean.

I sit down hard on a bench, dizzy and out of breath. The chilly air bites hard at my legs, as I'm only wearing hospital scrubs and the dominatrix's trenchcoat. I suddenly remember that it's November and that I was planning on heading back to Martha's soon for Thanksgiving... with Dean. _Fuck. Fuck. If I have to shoot Living Dead Dean, I’m gonna be so fucked up in the brain._

 _All right, breathe, Kimmy._ I try to think around the massive throb that is my head. Okay, if they want him alive then they can’t move him far: the doc mentioned some internal bleeding. I haul myself up and limp around the streets until I find a phone booth. I call half the hotels in town asking for guests Finch and Krispen before the desk clerk at Maple Street Motorcade says, “Just a moment,” and connects me. I hang up before it starts to ring.

I got no weapons except the scalpel I swiped from the hospital. On my staggering, agonized dash across town, I pass a Little League game and grab a spare baseball bat leaning against the chain link fence. Which still leaves me facing the Impala’s impressive weaponry, but fuck all that _in the ass_ because they’ve got my _boy_.

So when I get to the mostly-deserted Maple Street Motorcade parking lot and find a tall, bearded guy sifting through the Impala’s trunk, I don’t hesitate. I walk up behind him and whack the back of his knees.

He yelps in pain and drops. I hook an arm around his neck, throw him to the ground, put my knee in his groin and hold the scalpel to his throat. “Gimme back Dean, you zombie _fuck_ ,” I spit into his startled, pained face. Which is pretty silly in retrospect, ‘cause reanimated corpses don’t really process requests. Or look startled.

There’s a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye and I grab the guy by the hair, drag him up and spin him around with the scalpel still at his throat. There’s an older guy there with a gun taking aim at my head. “Do it,” I scream, “and I operate on your buddy’s throat.”

That brings the older guy screeching to a halt, though he still sights down the shotgun like an expert. “You hurt him,” he growls in a baritone, “and I will blow your head off, bitch.”

I bare all my teeth at him, one of which has been chipped by last night’s adventure. “That’s real sweet, dickhead. You,” I add to my groaning captive, “up.”

It’s a tossup who has a harder time getting up. He holds his crotch in one hand and his legs are probably killing him from where I nailed him with the bat. But my head’s swimming and I feel like I’m gonna puke, so I haven’t got long before these guys get past their surprise and nail me. “Awright,” I snap, straining to keep the scalpel on the bearded guy. Goddamn, he’s tall. “I don’t give a shit who you are, zombies or necromancers or the fucking IRS. I want my boy back and I want him back _now_!”

“Um, Kim?”

A familiar voice makes my head whip around, which in turn almost makes me lose consciousness. I blink through the fuzziness of my vision to find Dean standing not ten feet away, pale and leaning against the doorway of room 115, but alive and seemingly un-zombified. There’s a chick standing next to him staring at me with wide eyes.

“Kim,” Dean says patiently, “do you mind not cutting my little brother’s throat?”

I gape at him. “You’re alive?”

“Appears so. Was sleeping peacefully not five seconds ago until Kristina,” he indicates the girl, “comes running in and tells me there’s a drunk chick outside with a baseball bat and a knife that wants to talk to me. Couldn’t really think of anybody else it would be.”

“Not drunk,” I correct automatically, weaving. “Concussion.”

He makes an annoying little _hm_ noise. “Seems to happen a lot with you.”

My brain finally catches up. “You _suck_! You suck like a sucking suckered thing. I was _worried_ , you dick!” I exclaim, and fall over backward.

The tall drink of water with the beard turns out to be an exceptionally nice fellow, because he forgets the whole ‘scalpel-at-the-throat-knee-in-the-groin-bat-to-the-legs’ business and catches my arm before I can crack my poor scrambled brains open on the pavement. “Hi,” I say to him. “Sorry. You okay?”

Once I right myself, he sits down hard on the edge of the Impala’s trunk, keeping one hand near his groin like I might take another lunge at it. “Just fine,” he says, eyeing me. “Is that your standard greeting, going up and half-killing people?”

“Naw, just men who I think are evil necromancers.” I transfer my gaze to the older dude, who has lowered but not released his gun. “Hi. You gave him your beard.”

Dean’s father blinks at me. He’s clean-shaven now, while little/huge Sammy has grown some dark, well-groomed facial hair. Which explains why the Hell I didn’t recognize them even in my addled state. “Hi,” I say to them both.

Dean shuffles out, followed by the girl, who’s still staring at me. “Hi,” I greet her. “You’ve got nice tits.” She does, too, big plump rack hidden underneath a T-shirt. Her eyes widen and she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Um, Kim,” Dean interjects in that same calm tone, “this is my brother’s girlfriend Kristina. If I don’t get to hit on her, you don’t, either.”

“Aw, man.”

“I know, I know. Aaaand, this is my brother Sam and my dad. Dad, Sam, this is my lesbian life partner, Kim Watson.” He smirks wide and mocking.

I smile just as sarcastically, wave to them. “Hi.”

Then I fall over again.

Chapter 14: Pod-Freakboy

After a solid night of restorative sleep, I wake up to motel room coffee and pod-Dean. Like, seriously, I do not _know_ this guy. “How ya doin’?” he inquires, handing me a cup.

I eye him over the steaming rim as I take a sip. He’d felt funny last night, but now he’s downright a whole different person. “Reasonable. Head hurts like hell.”

Dean nods genially-- _genially?!_ \--and heads into the bathroom. I duck my head and mutter some quick Latin, but he doesn’t burst into flames or anything. So I get up and hobble after him, my legs cramped tight. He glances at me inquiringly, standing in front of the mirror with his electric razor in one hand.

I reach under my T-shirt and pull out the small silver cross I always wear. “Poke.”

His eyebrows go up and his lips quirk, amused. “Not a shapeshifter, sweetheart,” but he still reaches out and closes his fingers on either side of the cross’s arms, jabbing his thumb and showing me the red blood. “How hard didja hit your head?”

 _Not hard enough to be fooled_ , I think, but then there’s a gentle knock at the front door. Something goes across Dean’s face like a window opening and catching the sun; just a quick flash, dazzling in its intensity, gone in a second. It leaves me blinking, though, and he steps past me easy.

Christ, I wish I could have that moment back. I wish I hadn’t blinked, had looked harder into that flash of expression and seen the cracked glass on the other side. Woulda saved … well. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

It’s Sam at the door, 6’5” and bearded, wearing some khakis and a polo shirt that totally fail to hide a muscular body below. He looks like a lumberjack masquerading as a golf pro; Dean apparently shares my opinion, ‘cause he pulls a face and says, “Sam, I refuse to allow you to wear that shirt around me. Jesus, put on a jacket or something.”

Sam scowls, but not deeply. “I came right from work, Dean. Dad heard from Barney Caulson in Boise that you were in the middle of all this shit… didn’t think we had much time before the police IDed you.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered if they did. Kim here fixed me up with a whole new identity; cops wouldn’t have found anything but a model citizen. Still, thanks for coming,” and he smiles with nothing but his lips. A chill goes up my spine.

Sam steps over the salt line and shuts the door, gives me a clinical once-over. He looks hard at my clothes and my boots, but not my face. Can’t read people, then, but can read people’s _things_ : he’s probably an accountant or a lawyer, something to do with money and knowing who’s got how much of it. He sticks his hand out like a pro, wide grip exuding confidence. “Sam Winchester.”

I’m not a little woman, but damn if I don’t feel petite with that bear-paw engulfing my hand. “Kim Watson. Nice t’meet you. Ah, sorry… about last night. Thought you were necromancers.”

“Fair enough. My legs accept your apology. Are you, ah…” He glances sideways at Dean, looking for direction.

Well, at least Dean comes by his straight-guy obliviousness honestly. “Lesbian. Partner,” I clarify. “Not lesbian partner, unless Deano’s got some surprises in his pants.”

Sam laughs, startled but not at all awkward. “Huh. How the hell did you two meet up?” He plops down on the corner of Dean’s bed and turns his eyes back and forth between us.

“Shapeshifter in Tennessee, ‘bout six months back,” Dean reports and sketches a shrug. “Kimmy was looking for a bail bond on the man, I was there to kill the freak. I saved her sorry ass--”

“Bullshit!”

“--and we kinda stuck together after that.”

“You’re a bounty hunter?” Sam inquires, giving my clothes another lookover.

I stand near Dean’s shoulder and cock my head in his direction. “ _We’re_ bounty hunters.”

His eyebrows go up and he looks to Dean, who shrugs again. “What can I say, Sammy? You were right, the whole gainful employment thing isn’t that bad.”

Sam’s eyes do another circuit while I sip my bitter coffee and scrutinize the two of them in turn. They don’t look much like brothers, really: dark and light, lean and compact, stealth and swagger.

“And you were working solo before that?” He’s looking at me when he says this, but then he very deliberately glances at Dean and includes him in the question.

The same lightning flash of something happens, goes over and between them. A monumental fucking question is being asked and I have not the foggiest goddamn clue what it is, because they speak the silent language of brothers.

“Yep,” Dean says in a voice that sounds like a mannequin talking. Blank. Casual about its lack of emotion.

I am officially freaked the fuck out. I disguise it by gulping down the rest of the coffee and grimacing at the taste. When I lower the cup, Sam is still hastily reordering his face from whatever revelation Dean’s just provided.

“Well,” he finally says and slaps his thighs. “Dad’s downstairs getting us a table at the restaurant. Want some breakfast?” His voice is casual, too, but his expression strains at the edges; he’s less adept at hiding intense emotion than Dean.

They’re both very, very fucking close to cracking, closer than I’ve ever seen Dean and from the looks of it, Sam ain’t far behind. So I say quickly, “They’ve got quiche, right? I’d kill for a goddamn quiche.”

Sam laughs a little too loudly. “I’m sure they do. Get dressed and c’mon down. Dad’ll want to meet you,” he adds to me as he rises.

“What about Kristina, man?” Dean inquires, his tone light. “You know civilians aren’t allowed at Winchester family reunions… too many chances for collateral damage.” I can tell he’s only half-joking.

Sam pauses with his hand on the door and winces awkwardly. “Yeah, umm… I work with Tina. She’s got her license already, so I brought her along in case we had to do some legal maneuvering for your release.”

Dean looks gently amused. _Jesus Christ… not possessed, not a shapeshifter, what the fuck?_ “What’d you tell her about me? Drifter, traveling salesman, dealer?” There’s a little barb on those words, but just the tip of the iceberg.

“Dean…”

“Hey, man, I just wanna know how I should act with her.” Dean spreads his hands easily. “Don’t wanna blow your cover, y’know.”

Sam makes another face and opens the door. He stops, hesitates, then turns back. “I was vague. Just said that you weren’t on best terms with the law.”

Dean purses his lips, nods. “Awright, then. I’ll do my best to look disreputable.”

Sam coughs a laugh. “That’s not gonna be too hard.” He hesitates another second, eyes on Dean. Dean looks right back, every feature in order, and Sam blinks first, turns away. “Hurry down,” he calls over his shoulder as the door shuts.

Pod-Dean looks at me with that same placid calm. I struggle not to take a step back. “Better take a shower, sweetheart. We’re going for disreputable, not deranged.”

-o-

John Winchester doesn’t try to read my face either: he looks at my hands and sides with the defensive mindset of a soldier. Then his mouth relaxes into a genuine, wide smile. “Pleased to meet you. Name’s John.”

“Kim Watson. Sorry about last night, somebody mistook my brains for tennis balls, wasn’t thinking straight.”

He smiles, waves a big hand. _What’s a little aggravated assault among friends?_

Kristina Green is a little better at reading people and she looks at me with alarmed, pleading eyes. She probably thinks I’m going to be her ally among this trio of wildly fucked up men. _Sorry, babe,_ I think to her. _It’s every woman for herself in this joint_. Sam sits beside her in the booth. Dean and I slide in to face them and John sits comfortably at the end of the table, perfectly at home.

There follows a rather long and wholly awkward pause filled only by the conversation of other patrons and the click of silverware. Dean plays with his fork, twirling and tapping it against the table; Sam stares at Dean; John’s buried in a newspaper; Kristina looks around at all of us, just starting to figure out that her potential in-laws and possibly her boyfriend/co-worker are a bunch of stone-cold _freaks_.

I sigh and toss her a line. “So Kris, what do you do?”

She’s equally relieved and annoyed. “Actually, I prefer Kristina, or Tina. And, um, I’m an associate at a law firm in Seattle.” She casts a quick glance to Dean, then back to me. “So what to you… do?”

“Bail bonds, mostly,” I answer. “Dean and I, we track down bail skips, bring ‘em in.”

Her finely-plucked eyebrows rise. “That’s… interesting work, I imagine.”

“You have no idea,” Dean answers sweetly beside me. I kick his ankle under the table and I’m pretty sure that Sam nails the other one, too. Dean is undeterred. “Actually, it kinda runs in the family. Dad used to work in the business, right Pops?”

Kristina turns with surprise to John, who covers lightning-quick. “Long time ago,” he says with that same _aw, shucks_ grin. This guy is good. “Still, I can be fast on the draw when the need arises.” He goes right back to the paper, sipping his coffee.

Dean smiles and taps the fork. “We were in town looking for a skip, ran into a little trouble.”

Kristina pauses delicately. “With the law?”

Dean’s smile kicks up a notch, full of teeth. “Naw, but I guess Dad and Sam wanted to head off trouble at the pass, make sure that I didn’t get a chance to make a dick out of myself. I got a habit of running off at the mouth, huh, Kimmy?”

He turns that toothy grin on me, elbowing my arm. “That you do,” I respond. The _you smarmy bastard_ is entirely silent. Anyway, Kristina looks a little more relaxed and then the waitress rolls around.

I make small talk, sticking to her as the subject. 75% of people love to talk about themselves, 15% hate it, and 10% will blow your head off for asking. Kristina’s in the majority, so she launches into long and detailed explanations of her work, footnotes provided by Sam. John reads the paper. Dean says nothing, but he holds his fork like he’s gonna stab somebody with it pretty soon.

When Kristina finally-- _finally_ \--departs for the restroom, we all sit back and breathe a sigh of relief, including Sam. That relationship ain’t gonna last.

“Look at this,” John murmurs and tosses over the newspaper. On the front, predictably, is the Night of the Living Dead Kidlets; but in a related column, there’s the headline ‘POCATELLO GIRL, 11, KIDNAPPED.’

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean swears, lunging for the paper.

I lean over his shoulder to read; this is the Dean that I know, flipping through the story with a Glare™. “Is it her?” I ask unnecessarily. The clench in my gut tells me _all_.

Dean’s jaw is positively rigid. “Yeah. He got to her.”

“Who?” Sam asks, sitting forward fast.

“Jackie. Little girl. Her birth father’s a necromancer… did all of _this_ ,” he waves at the cover story, “just to find her. And now he’s got her. God _dam_ mit.”

“Take it down, Dean,” John orders in a low voice. “Any idea on where he coulda gone?”

I look from John to Dean. He meets my eye, grim and steady. “No,” I tell John, and smile. “But I can fix that _real_ quick.”

-o-

John insists on coming with us. “Necromancer this powerful, you’re gonna need all the help you can get.”

Sam decides to come, too, despite or maybe because of Kristina’s vehement protests. They have it out in the parking lot and she leaves in a cab for the airport. Sam comes back inside with a set mouth, glares at nothing and everything. Gonna be some awkward breakroom conversations for him in the near future.

Dean is pitiless. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Fuck you,” Sam snaps and slams his way out, heading down the hall to the half-empty room that he shared with the girl. Dean’s Stepford-husband face wavers a bit and I bite my lip, focusing on the laptop and keeping my head down.

John does, too, though his method is to go through all the weaponry in the Impala. When I join him outside, a fellow refugee of the Sam-And-Dean Fucked Up Comedy Hour, he casts me a sideways look. “You bring your own gear to the mix?”

I glance at the M-16 he’s got in his hands, the reverential way that he holds it slung across his body, forefinger straight on the trigger. Old soldier. “Yeah, that one’s mine.”

We end up going through most the weaponry together, hidden from public view between a grove of trees and an alley. John’s a man of guns, blunt fingers going through every groove with muscle memory. “Was a sniper in ‘Nam,” he explains, sighting down a rifle. I nod and handle every weapon with extra care. _You can judge a man by how he treats his gear_.

“Were you in the service?” he asks, watching me slide my arm through the strap of a shotgun as I bring it to my shoulder.

“Naw. The guy who trained me, he was a Jarhead.”

“Hoo-ah.”

John Winchester’s a simple man, which isn’t to say he’s dumb: he thinks quick enough, but in straight, clean strokes. He has the hands of a mechanic, burned by a carburetor, fingerprints stained with black oil. Guns and cars have their complicated bits, but the ways they work are as basic as they come. If A, then B, no room for buts or complexity. He makes his mind up to like me real fast and I know that, short of blowing one of his sons’ heads off, I’m not gonna change his opinion anytime soon.

A door slams distantly. “Were they always like this?” I ask John.

He takes a while to answer, checking the edge of Dean’s curved blade that I still haven’t figured out the purpose of. “They’ve got their ups and downs. Been down a lot recently.” His gaze flicks at the hotel, as if checking that neither son is watching through a high-power telescope or something, then adds in a lower voice, “Never got the specifics of it. They always… been kinda close-mouthed.” He gestures emptily. “Able to talk to each other without talking. Makes sense, I guess: Dean pretty much raised Sammy. He, ah, tell you much how he grew up?”

“Told me that you guys fought a demon and won, which I’m guessing is pretty impressive.” I pause, then add carefully, “And that the demon killed his mom.”

A shadow chases itself across his face, but he nods. “Yeah. Right when Sammy was a baby. Dean was only four, but… I wasn’t good in the head for a long time after that. It’s only lately that Sam and I have gotten to know each other.”

On the hotel balcony, I can see Sam lean over the railing, his shoulders slumped and cell phone to his ear. “Dean said something about you two being up in Washington?”

John smiles, private, inward, and affectionate. “Yeah. We live down the street from each other, have for about two years now. It’s been pretty damn good, surprisingly: I was sure one of us was gonna kill the other one. We haven’t got the best history of gettin’ along. Dean was always the one that held us together.”

Dean has emerged from the hotel room and strides across the parking lot towards us, bag over his shoulder and head down. He still looks pretty pale and banged up from last night’s action. I watch him come and wonder who held _Dean_ together.

-o-

John and Sam have a rental car, a sweet pickup truck. “Had to pay extra,” John admits sheepishly. “Woulda felt weird driving anything else. So where we heading, Ms. Watson?”

I lay a map of the Western US out on the Impala’s hood and they gather around like a football huddle. Ah, men. “So, according to Lilly Panders, the necromancy cult where she met Bomar resides on the Colorado and New Mexico border, right in the middle of the Ute Indian Reservation. Bomar was born in the area, so I’d say we’ve got a 90% chance of finding him somewhere thereabouts. Also, Indian reservations are a gray area of jurisdiction, so no one’s gonna be asking to see our paperwork.”

“That’s what, eight, nine hours?” Dean asks, slides a gun into the back of his jeans. “Better get cracking.”

The huddle breaks. I step towards the Impala’s passenger door and almost knock into Sam. “Oh, sorry…” he stammers, then blinks at me. His hand is frozen on the door.

Oh. Crap. I turn around to Dean, mouth open to make a sarcastic comment about preferring the company of pickups, when a set of keys come flying through the air. I catch them on reflex.

They’re the Impala’s.

“Not really in any shape to drive,” Dean grunts, smirking around the split in his lip.

I close my mouth and bite down on my tongue until I taste blood, then walk cool as a cucumber to the driver’s side. Dean heads to the pickup and we both ignore the two silent _thuds_ that occur when John and Sam’s jaws hit the concrete.

 

Chapter 15: Blowing Up the Bike

As we pass over the Utah border, Sam asks, “So, you’re a real lesbian?”

I cock my eyebrow at him from under sunglasses. “No, I’m the fake kind.”

He has the good grace to look awkward. “It’s just, there aren’t many women that _don’t_ wanna sleep with Dean,” he explains.

“What can I say, I’m a trend-setter.”

He huffs a little laugh. We return to silent contemplation of the road.

About twenty miles later…

“How long have you and Dean been working together?”

We went over the whole background this morning; he knows it and I know it. He’s either a shitty lawyer or he’s got a huge blind spot situated around the general vicinity of his brother, because he’s being damned clumsy about sifting for clues.

I sigh and toss him a line; I’m a sweetheart like that. _Remind me to get drunk and shoot someone later_. “Boy saved my butt. I thought he might be someone that I could count on, and so far I’ve been right.”

“Yeah,” Sam answers distractedly, his eyes on the pickup in front of us. “He is that.”

“So how long’s it been since the two of you have hunted together?”

He casts me a startled glance that has… fear? Apprehension? “Did he tell you about our… family history?”

I measure this out carefully. “Some. Just that ya’ll used to hunt together, took on a demon.”

“It’s been a while. About three years.”

“Didja get a better offer or something?”

He takes about half a mile to answer and doesn’t look at me the whole time. “I wanted something different,” he finally answers in an old, old voice. “I’ve always wanted something different.” His lips twist into something grim that I hesitate to call a smile. “It’s kinda my curse. I’ve never been happy in… this. All of this.” He waves a hand; the gesture encompasses the Impala, the road, the pickup in front of us. “I tried for the longest time, longer than I should have, probably.”

He stops and pulls a face, like he’s just realized that somehow it all got turned around until _he_ was the one answering questions. Talking to me will do that to a body.

I’m so going to need to shoot up a bar tonight, because I toss him another line. “I always been in this business. Even before I was _in_ it, y’know?” I tap the wheel, loving the vibration of an engine. “There’s freedom out here. I can change who I am overnight, drop down someplace and be a whole ‘nother person.”

“And you like that?” he asks with a note of incredulity.

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you afraid that you’ll… I dunno, get lost in the world, without someplace you belong?”

Oh, Jesus. Jesus Lord, help this lost, fearful man, just as fucked up as his brother underneath the nice clothes and trimmed beard. I turn to face him and meet his eyes, trying to make him understand me--and Dean--just a little. “How could I? Everything I need to know, my home, all of it, is here,” I point to my head, “and here.” My heart. “I know who I am. Wherever I go, _that’s_ my home; _that’s_ where I belong.”

He stares at me, then turns away; like he can’t bear to look for very long.

We drive through the rest of Utah in silence disturbed only by his brother’s music.

-o-

“Well,” I murmur as gravel digs into my stomach, “anyone bring a S.A.W?”

Beside me, John chuckles low; I doubt his sons get the joke. Dean’s on the other side of me, Sam beside him. In front of us, the True Followers of the Dark Calf are having quite the get-together, bonfires and chanting and probably some barbeque. _What_ they’re barbequing, I don’t even want to think about.

The binoculars pass from Sam to Dean to me. “’Bout a hundred, I’d say. Don’t see any weapons, but I’m guessing they’ve got quite a stockpile.”

I sight through the binoculars at the crowd of robe-wearing Freakos. “Lovely.” More of them than I was hoping for. Cult jobs are tricky: I’ve stolen a couple brainwashed teenagers back to their parents in my day, so I know from experience that there’s nothing worse than fighting a religion. Plus, Dean and I are still at less than 100%, between his banged ribs and my head; I mentally place our survival chances at 1 in 3. Then again, the Lord hates a coward. “Awright, boys, what’s the plan?”

“There’s the main hall around there to the left,” Sam points. “The living quarters are scattered, mostly little houses. She could be in any one of those.”

“Naw,” whispers Dean. “They’re gonna want to baptize her tonight, get her soul under their banner. She’ll be in the main hall, protected.”

“Okay. So somebody’s gotta get up in there, which means drawing out whoever’s inside.”

The flickering firelight glints off Dean’s grinning teeth. “Oh, diversions are _definitely_ my department.”

I twist around to John. “You feel like playing sniper again?”

He blinks, surprised. “Haven’t got the equipment.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he grins. “But you do.”

I match his smile. “Think you still got it, old man?”

“Watch it, kiddo.”

“Awright, awright. Sam?” He raises his head, looks at me over Dean’s back. “You got Dean’s six?”

Dean turns to look at me too, his eyes glimmering in the dark. I tell him, “It’s either Sam or me goin’ in the main hall, and Jackie’s gonna need someone there who she knows. Sam?”

He only hesitates a breath. “I’m on it.” If Dean’s got a comment, he keeps it to himself.

John, taking his turn at the binoculars, growls, “I’m guessing about half the people down there haven’t got a heartbeat. Look, it’s cold enough you can see which ones are breathing and which aren’t.”

I lay my hands flat on the ground and wind my body up tight. “Well, that’s good to hear. I do so hate killin’ folks.”

-o-

Doesn’t make much difference what I hate: the first two heads I shoot splatter red. I cock the shotgun and throw my foot through the side door of the main hall. It’s some ornate number with goats’ heads carved in the wood. When I pass the threshold, a high, inhuman shriek goes up in the air and everything goes momentarily cold except for the cross around my neck: it flash-fires against my skin, burning like an iron. I duck against the doorway, hissing in pain and yanking the necklace out.

Inside the air is thick with incense and rotting things. The walls of the cavernous main hall are hung with the limbs of animals and maybe a few humans. Through the dim light cast by a single dangling bulb (and what _is_ it with necromancers and crappy décor?), a figure turns; for a sickening second all I see is a cow’s skull atop broad shoulders, leering at me. Then I realize that there’s a man underneath and I fire straight into his chest. He gives a very human cry of pain and topples straight over little Jackie, who’s chained on the floor, half-naked and screaming.

Distantly I hear gunshots, the high three-bullet burst of an M-16 and deeper retorts from Sam and Dean’s shotguns. No others so far, so apparently the zombie-lovers haven’t started fighting back yet.

I throw myself against the wall as two other robed freaks race into the room, then pop them both in the back as they pass me. Jackie’s still screaming and thrashing underneath the skull-wearer’s body, which I have an ugly feeling is her daddy. I sprint over and haul him off with one arm, using the other to keep the shotgun on the door.

“Jackie.” She’s got her face down on the ground, shrieking in high, undulating bursts. “ _Jacqueline_. Your mommy sent me, you remember me? It’s Kim, Kim Watson.”

She doesn’t hear me, too busy screaming loud enough to wreck her vocal chords. I grab her around the waist, handcuffs and all, and back out the door. There’s a flurry of movement at the main door and a group of clearly-dead folks stagger in, eyes rolled up to the whites and mouths hanging open. I doubt they can see me, but apparently they can hear the girl’s screaming, ‘cause they come for us.

I break and run for it, dropping the shotgun and yanking out my 9 mm to fire blind behind me as I haul ass out the side door, kid tucked under one arm.

The night’s full of flames and gunshots: apparently one of the boys has started a little bonfire of his own, bless him. A few fleeing robed freaks spot me and change direction, shouting as they charge to intercept me. I pull up, bring the gun around… and there are two whistling cracks. They drop and I send out a prayer of love to old soldiers as I scramble for the hole I cut in the chain link fence.

Jackie’s gone quiet. When I ease her through the hole in the fence, she drops to the ground like a boneless fish, eyes glassy and staring at nothing. I grit my teeth and squeeze after her, metal scraping my sides, then heft her back up into a fireman’s carry and sprint wild through the desert brush, smoke in my throat and my blood singing.

-o-

Jackie stays unresponsive as I pile her into the Impala, wrapped up in my coat. I haven’t got time to check her out at the moment; I strap her in and set that beautiful engine to roaring as I streak over the flat dust.

Dawn’s breaking before I reach the 160 highway. I can’t suppress a sigh of relief as I pull the Impala up onto blacktop: I’ve been pushing hard for a couple of hours across rough back roads and my bones feel like they’re gonna rattle apart. This is a hilly country, full of rain-cut paths and pot holes.

Jackie doesn’t flinch or even blink when I pull open the door and unbuckle her. She’s got blood on her face and I wobble just a bit until it wipes away clean. Besides a couple of scrapes and the handcuffs, she’s in pretty good shape, but she’s got a hardcore case of shock. She sits on the edge of the backseat, skinny little legs dangling over the side while I work on the cuffs, click them free of her bruised wrists. It’s freezing-ass cold out and it occurs to me suddenly while I bundle her up that it’s Thanksgiving Day.

It’s long, too long, and I’m about twenty minutes from calling the fucking National Guard before there’s the distant rumble of an engine. I cock my pistol and take cover behind the Impala’s fender, sighting down the road.

The pickup comes into view and I tense, thinking of slack mouths and whited-out eyes. Then it pauses and the lights blink twice. I rise and lean into the car, flashing the Impala’s headlights back.

It revs and comes screeching up alongside; my stomach does a somersault. John pops out of the driver’s side like a Jack-in-the-box. “Med kit.”

I’m already hauling ass around the side, grabbing the kit from beside Jackie’s door. She’s curled up on the Impala’s leather, so I leave her and vault into the back of the pickup, where Sam holds his brother’s bloody side.

Dean sees me and starts gasping. “She’s fine,” I say before he gets the question out. “Asleep in the backseat and lookin’ better than you right now.”

John hauls himself up in the truck bed beside me. “How ya doin’, Deano?”

His older son closes his eyes; his breathing’s erratic and Sam’s got blood all over his hands, but Dean manages a pained grin. “Peachy keen, Dad. Let’s get me fixed up for the prom.”

I measure out the morphine, tap the needle, and slide it into his arm. “Helluva diversion you put up there, Dean. Did you set the whole damn compound on fire?”

Dean chuckles raggedly, eyes still closed. His pulse when I feel for it is fast and his skin has goosebumps from the cold air. “Naw, that was Sam. He kicked over a pot of something into the fire. Fucker went up like napalm. Heh. Ow.”

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam says quietly. His face is as white as his brother’s; despite the dark beard, he looks very young. (And it occurs to me suddenly that that’s exactly why he grew it.)

Dean obeys more out of deference to the morphine hitting his system than anything else. John pulls a flashlight from somewhere and clicks it on, hands it to me. “Sammy,” he says gruffly, “let’s see it.”

I hold the flashlight high while Sam slowly peels his hands back then pulls up Dean’s shirt. Dean grunts in pain, but nothing gushes or spurts, so I send up another prayer for young soldiers.

“Looks clean,” Sam announces, his voice wavering only a little at the edges. “In the front, out on the side. Seems like it missed anything vital.” He leans low, careful to keep his weight off Dean, and presses an ear to his brother’s chest. “Lungs sound okay.”

“Let’s get it cleaned and stitched up.” John’s voice doesn’t waver at all. “Watson, hold the light. You’ve got the best eyes, Sammy, get in there.”

I lean to one side and watch the family triage. John passes supplies and keeps up a running dialogue with Dean while Sam bends to his task, eyes fixed and hands working steadily, drawing thread and wiping blood.

“You shoulda seen him, Dad,” Dean says blurrily at some point. “Sam kicked their _asses_. Just like blowin’ up a bike, huh, Sammy?”

I watch Sam’s face in the flashlight’s beam, the way he tenses and pauses in his ministrations to touch his brother’s shoulder lightly, then return to stitching his body back together.

 

Chapter 16: All These Things That I’ve Done

Jackie wakes up a bit when we put her in the back seat of the pickup with Dean: even wounded and half-conscious, he’s better with her than all the rest of us combined. He coaxes her into drinking some water and eating crackers that Sam wordlessly retrieves from the Impala. When they’re both relatively settled, I slide back behind the Impala’s wheel and lead the pickup down the two-lane back to civilization.

At the police station I take Jackie back; Dean and John take the bullet-scarred pickup out of sight. The night’s mayhem has come to light, but they buy the notion that Sam and I are a vacationing couple who found this girl wandering around on the side of the road. Like in Pocatello, they’re a bit too preoccupied with the piles of no-longer-reanimated bodies to look hard at our story.

When we pull into the motel, John and Dean sit on the concrete walkway outside their room, drinking beers. John’s taken a hard knock to his eyebrow, looks a bit Cro-Magnon with the swollen brow. Dean sits with his back to the wall, bulky sweater hiding the bandages underneath.

He’s still moving a bit wobbly and I cast him a stern glance when I walk up. “Oh, that’s brilliant. Survive the necromancy cult, then kill ourselves with a barbiturate cocktail.”

John shrugs guiltily, hands a third bottle to Sam as he slumps down beside his father. Dean takes another swig, grinning at me around the mouth. I shake my head at them all and plop down next to Dean, neatly snagging the bottle from his hands. “Jackie’s in the hospital. Docs seemed to think she’ll be alright.”

John and Dean both lift weary smiles to that, pale as ghosts but triumphant. “So whaddya wanna do for an encore?” Dean’s wide, loose grin encompasses us all, but rests pretty heavily on Sam. “Think there’s a dark fortress to storm?”

Sam laughs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Dean, the only fortress you’re going to be storming is the inside of a toilet bowl once that beer hits your stomach.”

“Aw, shaddup, Sam. I could outdrink you with a hole in my side, no problem. He sings karaoke,” Dean adds to me in a too-loud undertone, waggling a finger at Sam. “And Dad writes in his diary.”

John, regarding us all with bemusement, stiffens. “It’s a _journal_ , Dean.” Dean sniggers impolitely.

“Might be a good idea to get some sleep,” Sam suggests, supported by the circles around his eyes. “Think we need to get out of town anytime soon?”

“Probably not wise to hang about. The local law is still in a clusterfuck, but once the holiday’s over, they’ll start sorting through the mess.”

Sam sets the bottle down with a sudden clunk. “Fuck. It’s Thanksgiving Day, isn’t it?”

“That it is, Sam. Cheers.” I raise my stolen bottle in a toast, but he’s too distracted to notice.

“Dad, we better call Lorenzo and Diana,” Sam says urgently, squinting at his father in the morning sun. “They’re gonna be worried.”

“Friends of yours?” Dean asks, making a grab for the bottle again. I hold it out of his reach and he scowls at me.

“Sorta.” John digs a cell phone out of his pocket. “Lorenzo works at the garage and Sam tutors his kids in English. We made plans to eat over at their place.”

Sam’s hauling out his own cell phone and scrambling to his feet with a dark face. “And I invited Kristina, along with half the office associates and interns. _Shit_. Man, I’ve got a million messages. They’re probably about to send out a search party.”

“You go ahead and call your friends,” John waves at him, punching in numbers. “I’ll get ahold of Lorenzo, let him know what’s going on.”

Sam nods absently, phone already at his ear, taking a few steps away from us. “Hey, Myrna. Yeah, it’s Sam…”

I watch them both take their calls; no big deal, just family stuff, none of my business. I start to take another sip of the beer.

Then I happen to glance over at Dean.

Maybe it’s the hole in his side or the drugs or just plain bone-weary exhaustion, but there’s not a shred of defense on Dean’s face. He looks at his father and brother with this tangled-up fuckfest of emotions--anger, resentment, love, hurt, longing--all frozen in the face of a little boy lost. Like the world, all happiness and love and fluffy bunnies is _right there_ , not six feet away, behind barbed wire, guard dogs, and twenty inches of bullet-proof glass.

I look away quickly, because I know he wouldn’t want me to see him like that. So instead I see them all, the three of them, and think, _oh, Kimmy, you dumb fuck_. Here they are, the brother and the father, on one side, and Dean on the other. And here’s the Wall of China in between, that none of them know how to tear down because none of them _built_ the fucking thing. There’s Sam over there with his thoughts of home, of belonging. There’s John, trying to build some life for himself from his own ashes. There’s Dean, with his open road and the rolling world.

And I know without asking that this, this right here, is what it always comes down to. They happen to live on opposites sides of the Great Wall and no one’s to blame for that. _God_ , I hate it when there’s no one to fucking blame, because what can you do? How can you fix this without dragging someone away to live on the other side of the glass, always glimpsing what they want and never have?

I take that sip of beer, swallow shakily. When I look back at Dean, he’s shut up tight, pod-face in place. Cutting loose and just waiting, grim and aching, for when they’re going to go back over the Wall.

John hangs up first, sighs. “Diana says there’ll be about sixty pounds of leftovers for us when we get back.”

Dean barely reacts, makes a little _hm_ noise and fiddles with the sleeve of his sweater. John looks at him, then at me. I pretend to read the label on the beer in my hands.

Sam mutters some apologetic goodbyes and comes back, looking five kinds of cranky. “Never gonna hear the end of this one.”

I glance around at them as casually as possible and ask for the second time, “Awright, boys. What’s the plan?”

It’s Sam’s turn to look at Dean, then me. “Guess we’re heading home,” he says, and suddenly looks just as young as his brother did a minute ago.

I take a breath and step into the crossfire. If I don’t play this right, I’m gonna have three very pissed-off guys swinging at me: I doubt any of them would take kindly to being manipulated and lest I forget, these bastards fought a grudge match against a demon, and _won_. “Not in your current state of mind, you’re not. It’s a twenty-hour drive back to Seattle, and that’s if you’re booking it. I give you six hours at the outside before you wrap yourselves around a cactus.”

Sam huffs irritably and rubs at his face. “Well what _do_ you suggest, then? We can’t exactly stay here.”

“Well I don’t know about you two,” I nod to Sam and John, “but we’ve got our own Thanksgiving plans to uphold. And the lady who invited us is less likely to save us leftovers and more likely to pop a cap in our asses if we miss dinner.”

Dean’s eyes are on me, looking sideways. I think he knows what I’m about, but he’s not saying anything. I can’t tear down this Wall, but maybe I can arrange for visiting rights, if he’ll let me.

John furrows his brow. “I’ll bite. Who’s the dragon lady?”

“Martha Collins. She’s about five hours thataway,” I point east, “in Amarillo, visiting her oldest kid. Dean and I were planning on hauling ass down after we finished in Idaho.” Which is actually completely true: there’s been a spot reserved for Dean at Martha’s table ever since I brought him home for the 4th of July and everyone knows how _that_ went.

(I never told you about the time I brought Dean home for the 4th? Oh. Well, trust me, it was impressive. That poor flock of geese never knew what hit them. I’ll tell you about it some other time.)

“And this Martha lady,” John inquires, “she’s not gonna mind an extra pair of mouths showing up at the last minute?”

I grin. “Trust me John, that’s the _least_ thing you should be worried about with Martha. You two are more than welcome to come and enjoy the meal. Or, y’know… you can start the 1500 mile drive back to Seattle and get there in time for the leftovers to chill.”

-o-

So about half an hour later we’re driving East through New Mexico, homeward bound. Dean’s back in the pickup with his dad and Sam has come out of whatever weird funk he was in yesterday. Maybe blowing shit up really did shake out the kinks for him. “So where are you from, originally?”

“Vegas, baby, Vegas. City of sin and legalized prostitution.” I throw him a huge wink and he gives a start, then laughs, shaking his head. “What?”

“Nothing.” He casts me a quick glance, almost uncertain. “You just reminded me of Dean right then.”

I consider that, decide on a smile. “Ain’t necessarily a bad thing.” He’s got no further comment, so I move on, “Vegas is fine if you’re a tourist passing through. If you’re living there for a while, though, all that flashing light and shit starts to hurt your eyes. What about you, where you from?”

Sam pauses. “Well if you ask Dean or Dad, I’m from Kansas. But I don’t remember it at all, we moved away--after my mother died. So… I don’t know. I’ve never really thought of anywhere as home.”

Which explains a lot. “And right now, you’re working at a law firm?”

“Yeah. Working my way up to associate. I’m just in the entry-level right now and it’s pretty… well, it sucks, honestly.” He huffs (does that a lot) and rubs at his eyes. “I--kinda dropped out of school for a while. To hunt this one demon with Dean, and my dad. So now I’ve gone _back_ and that means that all the people I work with are about five to ten years younger than me. It gets awkward sometimes.”

“What, you don’t like that crazy hip-hop music those damn kids are playing on your lawn?”

He laughs out loud, which is a surprisingly joyous thing. There’s lightness to him just beneath the surface, buried under a lot of time and weariness and his own internal injuries. In another life, he’d have been the star of the party, the charmer. “Yeah, right. Those damn kids.”

I glance at the pickup in front of us then jerk my chin at the glove box. “Get in there, wouldja?”

He folds up his mile-long legs and pokes it open, then stares. Eventually he pulls out my iPod and holds it up with a face of pure, shocked amazement. “Dean actually let this inside his _car_?”

“It was a fierce battle. There were many deaths.” I take the adapter from him, plug it into the cassette player, and cue up The Killers. “How’s this for crazy hip-hop?”

He laughs, darting scandalized glances between me and the pickup, like we’re smoking pot or something. He looks all of about twelve years old. “Wow. Just, wow. You got balls, lady.”

I take a moment to remind myself that this guy is only a year younger than me, because pretty soon he’s drumming on his legs and smiling wide, and ten years drops away from him like they’ve been suctioned. “So how’s Seattle working out for you?” I ask.

He looks out at the wintery desert, fingers tapping. “It’s… okay. I guess it takes a while for me to feel comfortable anywhere. Like, I moved around so much as a kid, it was hard to get attached to places. It was almost _better_ not to: we’d just have to move in a couple months anyhow.”

“But you’ve been there three years, right? Your dad told me,” I add at his quick, questioning look.

“Yeah… yeah.” He has that same inward, private smile as his dad. He starts to say something else, but is interrupted by the chirp of my cell phone.

I turn down the music and pick it up. “Hello?”

“ _Turn that shit off!_ ” The voice crackles through the static, assaulting my eardrum.

I blink. “Wha--Dean?”

“ _You heard me, turn that shit off right now!_ ”

“What’re you talking about?”

“ _That emo-angsty garbage, Kim! You are strictly forbidden from playing that in my car and you know it!_ ”

I gape out of the windshield. In the pickup, I can just barely make him out, twisting around to glare back at me with the cell phone to his ear. “Wha--how can--Dean, you’re not even in the _car_. How the fuck can you tell what I’m playing?”

“ _I CAN READ LIPS, BITCH._ ” That’s loud enough that Sam hears it: his eyebrows go up and he claps a hand over his mouth guiltily. “ _Now turn it off!_ ”

I stare at him, incredulous. “Dean. You can’t even hear it…”

“ _It doesn’t matter, dammit! It’s still my car and you_ will not _taint it with your crappy taste in music_.”

My jaw clamps shut. After a moment I say calmly, “Oh yeah? Lip read _this_ , jackass.”

I snap the cell shut, toss it over my shoulder into the back seat. Then I reach out and crank the stereo up.

_And when there’s nowhere else to run, is there room for one more son?_

I mouth along, exaggerated, bouncing back and forth in my seat like a peppy cheerleader. Sam chokes for a moment and then his shocked, joyous laughter rings out through the whole damn car.

 _Yeah, you know you gotta help me out, yeah, don’t you put me on the back burner_.

Sam joins me, the two of us bouncing and lip-synching and maybe there’s even a bit of crappy white-person head bobbing. I’m very glad that it’s not videotaped, let’s just say that.

Somewhere in the back seat, the cell phone rings and rings. Dean’s hitting the back window of the pickup’s cab, flipping us off.

The bridge hits and Sam drums out the rhythm on his jeans. I move my shoulders in time.

_I got soul but I’m not a soldier… I got soul but I’m not a soldier…_

It builds and builds and then the chorus hits. And Sam rocks. The fuck. Out. Head banging, arm waving, dancing as much as one can when strapped into the front seat of an Impala. It’s a bit like watching a giraffe have a seizure.

I’m helpless with laughter and Dean is practically leaning out of the pickup’s window, John reaching over to yank on the back of his shirt. I mouth the song to him, throw in some jazz hands at the sustained high note.

_I got soul but I’m not a soooldiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeer!_

Sam throws his arms up in the air like he’s in a gospel choir and just can’t wait for Lord Jesus to take him now, Lord Jesus, take me now.

 _Well everyone’s lost, the battle is won, with all these things that I’ve done_.

When the song is over and we’re moving on through the super-depressed “Andy, You’re a Star,” Sam says with very solemn belief, “He’s going to _kill_ us.”

 

Chapter 17: Larry Lewellyn

When we stop for gas near the border, Dean strides back to the Impala like a bruised Horseman of the Apocalypse. I stand my ground, and screw the whole _kicking Sam’s ass_ or _storming a necromancer cult compound_ business… I think planting my feet in the Texas dirt and facing Dean’s approach is what made John and Sam both decide that I’m the biggest badass bitch that ever lived. _They_ both keep their distance, Sam hunched on the passenger’s side of the Impala and John peeking out from behind gas pumps.

Dean pulls up short, glaring wildly, and snatches the keys from my fingers. I keep my face completely blank, calm. “You are _never_ … _never_ driving her again,” he pronounces with the force of twin suns.

Sam whoops, then slips and slides his way into a full-out belly laugh; Dean tenses up momentarily at the sound, but then, slowly, his body unwinds. He looks across the top of the Impala at his beanstalk-sized baby brother, who’s turning bright red, and Dean loses The Glare™.

Which is great for me, ‘cause hey, I’m ballsy, not suicidal. “Felt like the out-of-towner should decide on music, brother. You gonna be wantin’ coffee?”

He glares at me still, but says grudgingly, “Yeah, sure.”

John falls into step beside me as I head to the Mini-mart. “God- _damn_ girl,” he says low and appreciative. “You sure do know how to handle him.”

Something about that… I dunno, it tics my hackles up just a hair. I shrug carefully, trying to figure out why. “I know him, he knows me. We’ve been working together the better half of a year.”

John lifts his shoulders as the automatic doors part before us and a wall of hot air rolls out. “I’ve known him the better half of his life and I still got no clue.”

I process that while we shop for frozen burritos and cheap, dirt-colored liquid that is only “coffee” in its caffeine amount. Somewhere on aisle 3, it occurs to me that he had been outside checking weapons while Sam and Dean had been angsting back in Idaho; and that while Dean’s freaky, placid face slid on around Sam, it was _for_ Sam, not his father.

Which opens up a whole interesting set of questions about how exactly John wound up on Sam’s side of the Great Wall. He’s an Old Soldier, born and bred to fight, not live among civilians and work on their minivans; yet I’m the one “handling” Dean, bleeding with him and putting him back together at the end of every hunt. I’ve seen Dean whip a gun enough times to know that he’s been military-trained and I’d wager every inch of my skin that John’s just the kind of soldier who drilled his son to the bone.

I wonder how this old soldier left the battlefield and I study him. John’s not that great with people, no surprise: he’s all surface and charm with the counter clerk, like someone else I know. He’s still pretty much surface with me too, I guess, though there’s an undercurrent of honest affection. I think he likes tough women: the helpless ones that he’s met probably didn’t last very long.

Underneath the Midwestern farmboy hides the hunter, the soldier, and there’s the funny part, ‘cause that’s _him_. Not this nice fellah who’s making small talk about the road conditions and Thanksgiving plans with an overweight Mexican kid behind the counter. He circles back to join my contemplation of the frozen food section. “There’s snow between us and Amarillo. You guys got chains?”

I wave a hand. “We got Jesus, man, we’ll be fine.” The freezer door opens with a sucking noise when I yank at the handle. “Has it been a while since you’ve hit the open road?”

He eyes the boxes of frozen meatballs that I pile on top of each other. “Yeah, guess so. I was down in Kansas for a year before I moved up to Washington with Sam.”

“You miss it?” I ask, pinning the boxes in place with my chin. I shut the freezer door with my hip and move down to the wine section: gonna need some fine liquor to get in Martha’s good graces.

John follows, muttering, “Sometimes.” He means it, too: if the man spent twenty damn years in the field, it must have been hell to switch around.

“Why’d you leave?” I inquire bluntly, my interest disguised by an awkward attempt to grab the neck of a white wine… Martha likes her spritzers and damn if I’m not gonna show up with some.

He takes a bit to answer, but I’m fumbling so much and so (seemingly) focused on the slick bottle of wine that John takes it out of my hand finally, holding the curved glass between his two big meaty paws. “Guess hunting on my own didn’t seem like much of a prospect anymore.”

On his own… which meant that Dean wasn’t with him out there. And that makes their separation _Dean’s_ choice, not John’s. A whole new perspective opens up and I work the timeline out as I lay my purchases down on the counter. Sam’s been in Washington for three years, John for two: a year between, when John wandered aimlessly before jumping ship for Seattle. A whole year for Dean to bridge the gap with his dad and he didn’t take it.

“Dios bengida a tu familia,” I tell the clerk, leaving him change.

He smiles quick and wide, thoughts turning to home where they belong. “Gracias, senorita.”

-o-

Outside, the day’s wearing on and big fluffy gray clouds hang a promise of snow on the hook of the horizon. John huffs next to me, pulling his coat closer; his eyes, though, go across the parking lot to his sons. Sam’s leaning against the front of the Impala, hands in his pockets, too casual. Dean’s at the back of the pickup messing with something and his shoulders stand tall, up around his ears. He glances over at us and I look away, don’t want him to know that I was watching.

My gaze goes over the parking lot and that’s just how this kind of shit happens. There’s an innocuous little white Ford escort by pump number 2, its short owner huddled under a thick yellow parka. The guy shifts a bit as he leans over the nozzle and I see his bald patch, his round chin.

The well-used synapses fire and process, still a machine after all the alcohol and concussions I’ve inflicted on my poor dumb brain over the years. I make the connection lightning-quick, shift my grip on the meatball-filled bags, and start across the gas station lot. John, to his credit, senses the change in me immediately: he glances sideways but bites his tongue like a pro. I keep my face forward and watch pump 2 out of the corner of my eye as we pass.

When I get back to the cars, Dean’s seen the way I’m walking, too. He’s on high alert, frowning as I take time to set the meatballs down on the ground.

I turn and put my shoulder against his. “Pump 2. Is that Larry Lewellyn?”

He has to lean in a little to see, our heads tipped together. John steps instinctively out of our line of sight and the two of us examine the Escort’s owner.

“Yeah,” Dean says slowly, bemused. “That’s Larry.”

“What the fuck,” I wonder, “is he doing in Texas?”

“Dunno,” Dean replies. “Let’s ask him. _Hey, Larry!_ ”

He shouts the last part and behind me I hear Sam’s feet scuffle in surprise. I’m already off running, gritting my teeth against the leftover soreness of necromancer-inflicted wounds. The Escort’s owner snaps upright, head whipping around; his paunchy little face takes in my hurtling approach then turns white, and he scrambles for the driver’s seat.

Two shots ring out behind me. I know their source without looking and don’t flinch, not even when they hit the front and rear tires of the driver’s side. Dean had to shoot around me, on either side, to take out both. Bless the old soldier who trained him.

Larry’s scrabbling with the car, getting the engine started despite the flats, when I jump up onto the hood and grab the windshield wipers. His watery, frantic gaze snaps up to meet mine through the glass.

“Do not doubt me,” I grit, though I doubt he can hear.

He gets the general idea, though, because he slumps and lets go of the steering wheel, putting his hands up like the experienced little white-collar con he is.

I slide off the side of the hood and walk around to wrench the driver’s side door open. He comes out easily: the guy’s about two inches shorter than I am and though he probably weighs more, not an ounce is muscle. “Hi, Larry.” I push him face-first against the car’s side and start patting him down. “You’re a long way from Nevada.”

“Hi, Kim,” he answers wearily. “Don’t suppose I can bribe you?”

“Did it work last time?”

Dean slides up beside me, gun out but lowered. A few fellow gas station patrons huddle around their cars and Dean calls to them, “Bounty hunters. Bounty hunters.” He slides his gun into the holster. “No friends,” he reports, then turns his attention to Larry. “Larry! My man! How you been? Violating parole again, I see.”

“How are you guys even _here_?” Larry moans unhappily.

“’Cause God hates embezzlers, Larry.” I whap him lightly on the head. “We weren’t even looking for you. I’m guessing you’re barely twelve hours out, not enough time for a bail bond to even be posted yet. Which means,” I add, catching Dean’s eye, “that we’re gonna have to hang on to you until there is.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but it’s nothing compared to Larry. “Jesus, Kim, all I wanted was to go home to my family,” he whines. “My little girl… Emily, she’s sick, she’s not doing good…”

“Larry,” I reply patiently, snapping handcuffs over his wrists, “you don’t have any children. Thank God.”

He makes some inarticulate protests as I yank him away from the car and start hauling him over to the Impala. The gas station clerk has come out to stand in the doorway, watching. “You best keep the car,” I call to him. “Police’ll be wanting it back.”

John and Sam stand near the Impala’s fender, watching our approach with varied levels of amusement and surprise. “A ‘skip’?” Sam inquires, eyeing Larry. He does it at a sizable distance: there’s about a 10-inch difference in height between them.

“Yup,” I reply, jerking my chin at Dean to open up the Impala’s back door. He does and I nudge Larry down and inside, his hands still pinned behind him. “You can act as his counsel if you really feel like it,” I add to Sam.

“I have a medical condition!” Larry wails just as Dean shuts the door.

“So what the hell do we do with him?” Dean asks as Larry continues to shout through the glass at us.

I shrug, contemplating the way Larry’s chubby cheeks press against the window; we’re gonna need some Windex later. “Take him to Martha’s, I guess. We can leave him out in the car if we have to, but it’s gonna be Monday before they actually post a bond for the sucker.”

“That how it works?” John inquires. Dean and I both look over at him and he frowns at Larry, a little bewildered. “You guys get money for dragging in people like him?”

In his mouth it sounds so childish and I realize that’s what got my hackles up earlier: the idea that somehow, thirty-two years not withstanding, Dean is still a kid. A juvenile in his father’s eyes, someone that’s never grown up and still needs “handling.” It’s not something deliberately demeaning, but there it is. He doesn’t think of Dean as grown up, just a toy soldier who never learned to operate on his own.

I make an effort not to say something cutting, ‘cause he really doesn’t deserve it. “We take down criminals, John. Remind me to tell you about Brett Hosley sometime.”

Dean’s face goes dark but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps his gaze on Larry.

Then my brain catches up to me and I grin wide at Dean until he meets my eyes. He knows not to trust that look and scowls as he asks, “What?”

I lick my lips, enjoying this more than I probably should. “You got your choices, brother. You either ride with Chubby,” I indicate Larry with a flick, “or you let me drive The Metal Goddess again.”

Dean stares at me. He curses. He hands me the keys.

 

Chapter 18: Thanksgiving Day, part I

_The setting:_

A large, palatial house, the domain of one Josephine Collins Oakley, eldest daughter of Martha, wife to the good ole boy Harlin Oakley. It’s Thanksgiving Day, approximately 6 in the PM, middle of a snowstorm.

-o-

Dean and I walk Larry to the front door; he’s still moaning and groaning, though a little less now that Dean’s joined me. Dean’s not nearly as… _tolerant_ as I am. Sam and John walk behind, uncertain, their hands in their pockets and shoulders hunched against the snow.

Erin, Martha’s green-eyed youngest, stands in the doorway, poised like a 17-year-old Greek statue until she sees Dean. Then she falls apart into a wide grin and awkward, fumbling hands. “Hi, Dean,” she says, not even looking at the rest of us.

I take a firmer grip on Larry and Dean steps forward to slide his arms chastely around Erin’s waist and pecks her sun-browned cheek. “Hey, Erin. Your momma here?”

That question is answered promptly when the door behind Erin opens and Martha steps out in all her chubby, 5’2” glory. She’s gone and made herself grayer than the last time I saw her, added a few more crinkles on the corners of her eyes. I wish I could say that I find them charming and I do; they also send a little cold spurt through my belly. Martha shouldn’t _get_ old, it just can’t _happen_.

Of course, I’m partly to blame for all those wrinkles and gray hairs. She looks at me first and says, “Kimmy,” with a slump of the shoulders and a smile that appears every time I show up at her door again in one piece.

I shove Larry over to Dean. Martha’s got a jar of raspberry preserves in one hand but she still wraps both arms tight around my neck. “Hi, Martha,” I say, bending my face to her shoulder and inhaling _home_.

She pats my shoulder once, hard, Martha-speak for _you’re late and I was worried_. As I step back her gaze goes quickly over Larry, assessing and dismissing: she knows in an instant what level of criminal he is, what his crime was, and if she could beat him in hand-to-hand combat if he gets loose. Short answer: yes. She makes absolutely no comment about us bringing a skip home for Thanksgiving dinner.

Erin, who’s a Tae-Kwon-Do black belt, takes Larry’s arm as Dean steps up. It all has the air of ritual when Martha takes his jaw firmly in one hand and looks him over, left, right, dead on. This little gray lady manhandles Dean like a prize horse, but he takes it without complaint, even smiling a little when she looks in his eyes.

“Hi there, baby boy,” she says, eyes intent. She can tell that he’s hurting; Martha can look into you and observe every wound of flesh and soul. If I could see the way that she does, God knows how my life woulda gone. Maybe better, maybe worse: some people prefer near-sighted companions.

Dean’s smile wavers a little and his gaze sweeps down, trying to hide himself. She lets him go and turns her attention to Sam and John. “These your people?” she asks Dean.

Because of the way we’re standing, Dean with his back to Larry and Erin, Martha looking away from him, and me standing between Dean and his family, I’m the only one that can see his face, the way his mouth hangs open a moment. “Yeah,” he answers gruffly, looking at no one.

Martha scans them both up and down; John recognizes a superior and straightens his back while Sam draws his hands quickly out of his pockets.

Martha holds out the jar of raspberry preserves. “Can one of ya’ll gentlemen open this for me?”

John takes it slowly, twists the lid until it pops, then hands it back. She looks him over again and it’s hard to tell in the near-darkness, but I’m pretty sure he blushes.

“Well,” Martha says primly, “best get in out of the snow, boys.”

-o-

Inside, I stop in the doorway and Sam runs into my back. He makes a questioning noise and I murmur, “Let the boy make his entrance.”

And what an entrance it is.

The kids come first, a sea of ankle and knee biters that shriek, “DeanDeanDeanDean!” About half of them are too young to even remember him from last time, but they shout with their fellows anyhow, clutching at him with sticky hands. I shudder and edge behind Larry.

Dean, though, he goes right out into the middle like a layer of him is being pulled back: every hard edge melts, every rough surface goes soft and smooth in the space of an eyelash flicker. He opens his arms wide, scooping and sifting until he’s grabbed everyone’s hands and tickled every rounded belly.

The mothers come next, thankfully, lifting children onto hips and turning cheeks for Dean’s kisses. “Hello, Dean,” they all say with the charmed, exasperated tone of married women who nevertheless preen under his attention.

The men follow, firmly yet gently taking back their wives when Dean gently yet firmly releases them. They shake his hand in that bent-arm way that Texan men do, like they’re gonna arm wrestle in the next second. “Dean,” they say in gruff voices, clapping him on the shoulder. “Dean,” say the younger ones, studying his every move with shining eyes.

On the back fringes hang the unmarried, the divorcees, the teenagers, and the flirts. About a dozen girls (and a few boys) grope for self-possession to varying degrees of success. “Hi, Dean,” they greet quietly and casually, sliding their hands over his leather jacket as he hugs them.

Beside me, John says, “Jesus.”

Martha laughs, shaking her head, and moves off towards the kitchen; the crowd parts before her like the Red Sea.

Harlin steps over to us, a kid hanging off his shoulder and another on his hip. “Kim,” he greets me with a handshake and peck on the cheek. “Who’s this?”

“This,” I poke Larry, “is Larry Lewellyn. He needs to be hogtied in a spare room--”

“Daddy!” the kid on his hip shrieks, looking at Sam. “He’s a giant!”

“--and these are John and Sam, Dean’s dad and brother.”

“Yer shittin’ me!” Harlin whoops. “Didn’t know--”

“Harlin, don’t swear!” admonishes Jenn, who sidles up to hug me. She’s still got the hard edges of military about her: she only got back from Korea a month ago. “Hi, Kim.”

“--Dean was bringing family over.” Harlin puts out his mitt and shakes hands with both the Winchester men.

“Nice--” Sam says.

“Kim!” Jenn exclaims, seeing the handcuffs on Larry. “You brought a _criminal_ \--”

“--to meet you.”

“--to Thanks _giving_?”

“Relax, Jenn, he’s an embezzler. You don’t have to worry--”

“Chase!” Harlin summons his oldest boy, a quiet-eyed future quarterback. “You and Erin take this fellah up--”

“--unless you show him your credit card.”

“--and put his pudgy butt in the attic.” Harlin winks at me as Chase gives Larry a steely-eyed glare and steers him off. “No way he’s gettin’ away from my boy. You guys want somethin’--”

“Hi, Kim!” It’s Heidi’s boy Jonah, one of the few rugrats that I can stand.

“--to drink?”

“Whiskey would be good,” John says rather hoarsely. Harlin claps him on the shoulder, pulls him off.

“Hi, Jonah,” I greet, grabbing ahold of Sam. I’ve already lost one, I don’t think Dean would forgive me if the other went down, too. “How you been?”

“I’ve been practicing Tae-Kwon-Do with Erin,” Jonah announces gravely. “And Mom says that if I’m good, she’ll teach me to shoot a gun for Christmas.”

“Are you Dean’s brother?” Greg’s daughter Debby asks Sam. Her twin sister Molly stands next to her; they’re a pair of red-heads just waiting to set someone on fire.

“Um,” Sam replies, eyes wide. “Yeah. I’m Sam, nice to--”

“When I’m old enough, will you teach me how to bounty hunt?” Jonah asks, sounding like a little knight errant kneeling before his king.

“--meet you.”

“If your Mommy will let me,” I reply.

“I think she will,” Jonah nods, eyes thoughtful. “I already told her--”

“You’re so taaaaaaawll,” Molly breathes at Sam, drawling for all she’s worth.

“--that I want to grow up to be a lesbian, just like you.”

“That’s great, Jonah,” I tell him. “Do your Aunt Kim a favor, wouldja? Show Molly and Debby your karate moves?”

“Okay. Will you sit next to me at dinner?”

“Sure, kiddo.” I pat his head and nudge past him, pulling Sam along bodily after me. We wade into the fray after Dean, Sam clinging to my elbow like a drowning man.

Dean extracts himself from the grasp of Jane, Martha’s twentysomething tornado. He grabs ahold of my other arm, face flushed, eyes a little wild, laughing for all he’s worth. “Save me.”

“Make for the kitchen,” I say, pushing Sam in front of me.

Behind us there’s a yelp and a crash.

“JONAH!” Heidi shouts from her position on the stairs and there’s _my_ girl. “Stop karate-kicking your cousins!”

“Where’s Dad?” Sam asks, panicking.

I glance across the room to where John’s making his last stand, surrounded by flannel shirts and cowboy hats, and clutching a tumbler of whiskey. “It’s too late for him!” I cry, shoving the boys in front of me. “Save yourselves!”

Dean grabs Sam by the shirt, near-breathless with laughter, and hauls him through the kitchen door. I toss a quick look back to Heidi in time to catch and return her wave, then dive after them.

On the other side there’s a degree of quiet: the only folks in here are the cooks. Sam leans against a cabinet, panting. “Holy shit.”

The lady at the sink pauses in her chopping to point the knife at Sam. “No swearin’ in my house. I’m Jo, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Sam.” He sticks out a hand and they shake, both with the firm grip and the eyes going over clothes. The accountant and the lawyer, meeting of the minds.

“Jo,” Dean croons, his voice going low and happy as he sidles over to hug her from behind. “Baby, tell me this is the time…”

She elbows him lightly, blushing but unswayed. “Dean Winchester, my husband is above ground.”

“Well, that can be fixed,” Dean says wickedly, and dodges a second elbow, chuckling. He long ago picked up on the fact that threats of violence against Harlin are pretty much par for the course in this family. Jo wasn’t more than 17 when a cocky rodeo stud blew through town and took her straight to bed. It turned out the wind was strong enough to blow her right into the maternity ward and at least the dolt had the damn good sense to marry her, ‘cause otherwise he woulda had a horde of Collinses, step-Collinses, in-laws, and adoptees breaking down his door with pitchforks.

Still, he’s done right by her, from all accounts. Lord knows that if he hadn’t, the pitchforks would have reappeared and with a family of bounty hunters, soldiers, and ranchers, not a soul woulda found the body. Three kids and an accounting degree later, though, _she’s_ the breadwinner of the family, and he’s the stay-at-home pop. Funny how things turn out.

Jo puts down the knife and dumps an assortment of vegetables into a pot, stirring it. “Ya’ll willing to pitch a hand in here?”

I sling the backpack down from my shoulders. “Brought some meatballs, Jo.”

“Oh, bless yah, Kim.” Beau rolls up in his wheelchair, holding out his hands to me. “That bunch is ravenous and I’ve run out of appetizers. Pan’s in there,” he adds to Sam, pointing at a cupboard.

I lean down to hug him and take note of the weight he’s gained back. “You’re looking good, Beau.”

He smiles wanly, still pale. “Bullcrap. Rehab’s shit all over me and VA barely pays for the minimum therapy.”

Beau was an Army grunt: he and his big sister Jenn joined up together, went to the Second Korean War together, and came back together, thank Jesus, though they misplaced Beau’s legs along the way. It’s been hard, but at least he has Asfar. She’s over at the table putting salad together and smiles warm and quiet to me in greeting. Her English still isn’t all that great, but she says all she needs to with her face and hands. God knows how a sweet little Turkish girl wound up with a rip-roaring Collins, but she’s stuck with him through hospitals and physical therapy and relocation around the world; when the Apocalypse hits, I fully expect her to emerge from the ashes dragging him to freedom.

“We cooking all of these?” Dean inquires, lifting a couple frozen boxes in his hands and squinting at the labels. “Says… ten minutes.”

I take them from him and open them one after another, dumping the frozen balls of meat into the pan that Sam holds out. “We’ll need every last one. The rugrats alone will eat half.”

-o-

Between the three of us, we get the meatballs in the oven, and then Jo puts us on table detail. There are a total of five turkeys: two are already cooked and prepared, being kept warm on a side table. Dean makes feints at it and Martha smacks his hands away with tongs. “You three set the places.”

All the older kids are laying out napkins and bread plates. Carson, Amy, and Roy, Fred’s kids, pause to greet us before going back to setting out bowls on one of the seven tables. There’s Chase, quietly graceful, and over his shoulder is Taylor, a string-bean of a kid with a wide grin and an entourage of brothers, cousins and friends. He’s already the jock king at his high school, a sophomore basketball star.

“And _right at the buzzer_ ,” he says, posing, his arms raised as though shooting for an imaginary basket, “swoosh, bang, they went home crying. Right, Chase?”

He pauses in his story, big smile twitching as he looks to his older brother. Chase straightens from the table and I pause to watch, fascinated despite myself. Chase could destroy the kid with a word, tear down his puffed-up hero image, ‘cause however and wherever Taylor goes, he’s still the little brother. For all the kid’s big, bouncy heart, he hasn’t got an ounce of the grace that Chase possesses in spades.

Chase, the adored football player, a solid rock of man-in-the-making, could cast a huge fucking shadow in which even the best of Taylor’s gifts would wither. If Chase ever decided to _cast_ the shadow, that is.

Chase smiles back, big and genuine. “It was a hell of a shot, Tay.”

Taylor’s smile goes neon and he jogs around the table, switching on to another story of his exploits on the court. Chase bends back to his task, patient and dogged, apparently not minding that he’s the only boy working now.

I reach over and take a handful of the forks he’s laying out one after another. When he meets my eye, he smiles the same big, genuine grin that he gave to his baby brother, who is now pretending to dunk an invisible ball into the gravy.

“TAYLOR!” Jo yells from the kitchen, and Chase ducks his head, hiding the way his grin grows just a little more.

I think, _I know that grin_ and look sideways in time to see Sam look away from Chase and Taylor both, his expression pained.

 

  
Chapter 19: Thanksgiving Day, part II

As promised, I sit next to Jonah. Heidi glances at me with dark eyes and takes a seat on the other side of her beloved boy. Dean’s to my right tangled up with a still-laughing Sam while Jane eyes them both from across the table. Erin corrals the youngest kids, distracting their impatient bellies with stories of bold adventures and nobility; she’s the sage and muse of this group. John’s extracted himself from Harlin to talk military with Jenn and Beau down by the fourth turkey while Taylor shoots some last-minute hot rolls into a basket that Chase holds out for him.

No one sits at the table’s top end: that’s Donnolly’s spot, to the grave and beyond.

Then Martha steps up to the other end and conversation drops away. Taylor nails the last basket, Dean leans away from Sam, Jenn and Beau snap to attention.

She stands up straight, a small and fragile Moses to the smallest believer in us all; her fingertips rest on the white tablecloth beside her as she lets her eyes go around to all of us in turn.

Jo’s at her side, Harlin snugged up against his wife’s shoulder. At her right hand is some kid, about fifteen, a damaged stray from the looks of it. He stares up at her like a caged animal would look at the loose door swinging open on its hinges.

“We are family. We are loved. We are blessed,” Martha says, and sits.

The stray starts crying, small and desperate and ashamed, rubbing thin fingers across his cheeks like he’s trying to erase the evidence. No one around him makes a comment, just keeps the food heading in his direction.

After the mad chatter of the past few hours, it’s a blessing (albeit unnerving) to have everyone go silent. Well, almost everyone… the younger kids, too small to pass the food around and around, keep on a fractured dialogue. Jonah stays silent, bless his pointy little head; I knew there was a reason I love the kid.

Once the salad has gone by and my plate is full, I reward his patience. “That was a nice side kick you laid on your cousin there, J.” Heidi casts me a reprimanding eyebrow and I amend my statement. “’Course, it ain’t cool to practice on flesh… you want a punching bag for Christmas?”

Jonah’s freckled face lights up. “That would be awesome!”

“Sure,” I pat his head. “Gun lessons and a punching bag: Santa’s gonna need a bazooka to get down your chimney.”

Heidi snorts into her wine, shaking her head. Still, her face looks a little tight; all the self-defense courses and gun lessons aren’t just for fun. She’s got a very human demon of an ex-boyfriend whose memory chased her straight onto Martha’s doorstep… wasn’t all that long ago when _she_ was the one welling up at dinner. I know without asking that she’ll approve of the punching bag and anything else I can do to help Jonah throw down in a fight. The thought makes me shiver just a little and my hand lingers protectively over the kid’s hair. Ain’t nothing touching him, not with the adopted herd he’s got around him. Hell, even Molly and Debby could scratch somebody’s eyes out if it came to that.

The turkeys shrink: Jo, Chase, and Erin are in charge of carving. The fifth bird has fallen to a bemused John Winchester, who acquits himself nicely. I grin to Jenn, who no doubt handed the knife over with some excuse. She grins back and her silver armadillo earrings dance with suppressed laughter.

We’re about halfway through the meal when I glance down the table a second time and catch the startled, half-angry glance John throws at Dean. He twists around quickly and goes back to whatever discussion he’d been having with Jenn, but the back of his neck is flushed and his mouth--can’t hear what he’s saying, too much chatter--stumbles over his words.

I look to Dean and his eyes slide over mine, troubled and uncertain. Sam’s missed the exchange completely, deep in conversation with Harlin about local environmental lawsuits.

Dean’s just as curious as I am, ‘cause when the dinner rolls run low he hops up with the basket in hand, waving Chase back to his seat and heading to the kitchen. For all his experience, John lacks subtlety: he jumps right up, too, which draws a quick glance from Martha and some looks from the more observant members of our feast.

I grit my teeth and wait a few seconds before getting up myself. Martha doesn’t miss it, but she’s not the one I’m worried about: I’m not sure that Dean _or_ John want Sam involved in whatever’s going on. Fortunately, he’s still deep in conversation and I pause a moment to note that _he_ is _not_ among the vigilant… at least not where his own kin are concerned.

The kitchen’s quieted down without all the cooking, so I flip on a faucet as I pass to put up some white noise. Dean and John are over by the ovens; father leans into son and son stands straight-backed clutching the bread basket.

“--told them about us?” John asks, voice edging on demand before he notices me walking up. He takes a quick step back.

Dean doesn’t even glance in my direction and certainly doesn’t let my presence stop him. “They’re my friends, Dad. Yeah, I told them about the Big Bad Wolf and whatever else might hurt them.”

Ah. Shit. Jenn had been one of several with whom Dean and I had shared the wide, wonderful world of freak-hunting. She’s never heard about the delicate state of Dean’s family, though, and hadn’t known to tread carefully.

I lean against the counter, angled towards Dean’s side but far enough away to be considered neutral. “Relax, John. No one’s carting anybody off to the loony bin and no one’s calling the police.”

He looks back and forth between the two of us, but speaks to me--another way that he just doesn’t _see_ his son. “They believe you? All of them?”

I fold my arms. “Here’s how it works, John: Martha knows. All of her kids know. Jenn and Beau have got military contacts and we might need something from ‘em someday. The rest, they put salt over their doors and everyone’s a lot safer for it. Whether or not they tell any of their own kids, that’s on them: far as I know, Chase is the only young ‘un that’s gotten the rundown so far.”

John blinks at me slowly, thirty-some-odd years of conviction unwinding around him. “They believe you.”

Anything I know about John Winchester comes second-hand, but Dean has told me enough to paint a picture of solitude and fear, always slipping through the cracks in CPS and local law. Never having anyone believe in him and raising his sons to believe absolutely.

“They know us, Dad,” Dean says quietly and draws his father’s eyes back. “They trust us. If we tell ‘em to lay holly above their windows, they do.”

John’s startled beyond speech, can only nod jerkily.

When we get back, though, his wide-open eyes stare around the table. Taylor has challenged Chase for the wishbone and they wrestle over it amiably, though Tay’s got a look in his eyes that warns of a one-sided rivalry. It’ll drive him far, far from his brother’s side and the family’s bosom if Chase put some distance between them. Chase, he’s got the sense, though; I know for a fact he’s already got his eye on USC and a psychology degree. Two down to Taylor’s left, Jenn discusses immigration with Freddy: he’s joined the Minutemen and is gonna head to the border after the New Year. Over by Martha, the stray’s calmed down, as much due to Harlin’s easygoing charm as the massive amounts of food crammed into his wasted belly. Jonah has hopped up out of his chair to lean between Dean and Sam, interrogating the younger Winchester on his training techniques. Sam answers with a wide grin, startled and delighted.

John watches them all, a family of believers, and the tight layer of defense that he’s laid down disintegrates. Here’s this family, wrapped up tight and close, and there’s the world of darkness and demons that he knows. The world that he’s been so alone in all this time.

He doesn’t break down crying like the stray kid, but it’s there beneath.

Dean bends low over his plate, staring at his mashed potatoes with a seriously brooding gaze. Sam will notice _that_ before long, so I pick up a platter nearby and nudge his elbow.

-o-

Cleanup takes a couple hours, during which time Erin entertains the young ‘uns with a reading of _The Hobbit._ She does a killer rendition of Gollum, complete with hunched shoulders and croaking voice that makes the kids hunch together, wide-eyed.After a few chapters, the oldest and youngest members of our brigade head to the barracks.

The middle swath of ages, from 20-60, linger in the kitchen, wiping and re-wiping dishes until all the parents return from tucking in their young.

Then the night starts.

“Do you light up?” Jenn inquires of Sam.

“What?” Sam blinks.

“Pot, Sam,” Dean supplies, whacking his shoulder lightly. “Sorry, he doesn’t get out often. You got a bowl ready, Jenn?”

She grins like only an Army veteran can, reckless glee and country-wise. “You know it, baby.”

Martha rolls her eyes, but she’s cracked open my gift bottle and has a white wine spritzer in her hand that could cure the sobriety problems of Africa. “On the porch, please. Don’t want any impressionables catching us at it.”

Heidi and Jenn tuck into each other’s sides and head out the front door while Beau scoops up Asfar and rolls after them. I stand on tiptoe and slide out a bottle of Southern Comfort from the top shelf. “Do you gentlemen prefer your poison in the form of liquid or smoke?”

Sam continues to gape at the steady stream of people heading outside with bong pipes and shot glasses; John raises an eyebrow at me. “Got any crystal meth?” he cracks.

“Bite your tongue. No hard drugs in this house. We got Mary Jane, whiskey, vodka, wine, Bailey’s Irish Crème and beer if you want some.”

“I’ll have a beer,” Sam says quickly and Dean smirks.

Jenn, Beau, Jim, Dahlia’s boyfriend Aaron, Jane and Heidi have a nice little cloud hanging over them already when the Winchesters and I mosey out. I make a beeline and lean down to pluck the bong from Jenn’s fingers. “Thank God. I need to be _not_ sober ten minutes ago.”

She pats my hip consolingly. “Still skittish with the kidlets?”

“Still, now and always, darling.” I take a hit, enjoying the low burble and thick feel of smoke pouring down my throat.

I catch Heidi’s assessing glance in my direction and curse myself; my discomfort around kids has been the primary obstacle between the two of us hooking up. Still, I am what I am, and I am not a mother no matter how much I like Jonah; if Heidi’s looking for a co-mommy, she’s gonna have to look elsewhere. Still, I sigh inwardly.

Dean takes the bong from me and flops down beside Jane who jumps and then smiles wide, triumphant. John and Sam kind of hang around my shoulder until Martha comes by and scoops John up, leading him around the corner of the wrap-around porch to where the older crowd are sipping wine and talking about God-knows-what.

That leaves Sam flapping in the breeze; he fingers his beer and manages to look twelve years old yet again. And like a twelve-year-old, he looks to his big brother. Dean, though, is busily taking a massive hit off the bong and Sam wavers, then starts to head across the porch.

I kick Dean in the shins, once, hard. He yelps and coughs smoke, doubling over. I turn to Sam. “Sam, your brother’s bogarting. Make him stop.”

He stops and stares at me, then transfers his gaze to Dean. “You actually think I could?” he asks, voice edged with rueful wonder.

When John looks at Dean he sees a young soldier, a private in the ranks, who needs orders and guidance but cannot think on his own. When Sam looks at Dean, he sees water, forever changeable and changing, unstoppable, all-powerful. For one, he’s a spoke on Life’s wheel and for the other, he’s an elemental that can slice the Grand Canyon, flood the world, and drown his little brother alive. He’s been both to both for years, struggling to fall into line and hold up the sky, two halves that will never, ever fit and a whole that does not know what to be on his own.

Wow. This is some good weed.

I’ve missed the next few sentences of the conversation while staring into space and pondering The Tao of Dean, but at least Sam is leaning against the back of a bench that Jenn has pulled over to join the circle. I flop on the creaky wood, then glare up at Sam. “Siddown. Don’t wanna wrench my neck.”

He huffs a little, but cautiously sits beside me. Jenn, who was not forewarned of the Giant Winchester Angstfest but is a very bright kid and quick on the uptake, leaps into the awkward void. She starts telling wild Army stories about the time that she and her E.O.D buddies got higher than kites just before the North Korean tanks broke through the DMZ zone and started the Second Korean War. They spent the next 48 hours blowing up enemy forces while still massively, massively high.

I raise my bottle of Southern Comfort. “Protectors of the free world.”

“Kim, c’mon, get a glass,” Jane complains.

I flick my finger against the bottle. “This _is_ glass, Janey.”

“What about you, Kimmy?” Beau asks quickly. “What shit have you pulled when toked off your gourd?”

I consider for a moment, taking another swig from the bottle. “Wellll,” I purr, sliding my eyes over to Dean, “there was this one time, at a lake, in Oregon…”

Dean’s feet hit the porch with a crack and he sits up so fast Jane’s hand gets dislodged from where it’s been stroking his hair. “No,” he points at me. “No. We took a _blood oath_ , Kimmy… we are _not telling this story_.”

I laugh to the point of snorting; beside me, Sam leans forward with bright eyes. “What, what? Oh, you gotta tell the story now.”

“No!” Dean jabs his finger at his brother. “Don’t you encourage her or I’ll tell everyone about the time you peed yourself in the McDonald’s drive through!”

Sam’s wide mouth pops open, betrayed. “It was HAUNTED. The cashier was DEAD and--”  
He breaks off suddenly, eyes widening when he hears his own words.

“A dead McDonalds cashier?” Beau leans forward, resting his elbows on the blunt ends of his knees. “This I gotta hear. What, did she fall in the deep fry?”

Sam stares at Beau, blinks, looks around at them all, and Gets It. He takes it better than his dad: a quick shift of his feet, a clearing of his throat, and then he answers, “Got shot by a customer, actually.”

Dean’s grinning wide, as much at Sam’s acceptance as the memory. “Man, she popped right of the order window. We were in town looking for something or other, but I was teaching you to drive that night, remember, and we--we--” he stammers off, thumping his leg, “we went up for a burger and she just p- _popped_ out like freaking possessed Jack-in-the-box. It was great!”

“Bit straight into your neck,” Sam murmured. “Jesus, I was so scared. I was what, thirteen?”

“Thirteen?” Aaron regarded Dean with raised eyebrows. “You were teaching a thirteen-year-old how to drive?”

Dean shrugs, waves a hand. “He wanted to learn. Way we grew up, you never knew who was gonna have to haul everybody’s asses.” Which really means that he’d wanted Sam capable of driving in case he and John both went down.

A bit of music trails out from an open window: Simon, the quietest member of a loud family, has switched on The Grateful Dead. Bless his secretly sarcastic heart: the tunes of “It Must Have Been the Roses” now grace our ears. The bong circles around in time to the record playing and it’s starting to snow again. Not the soft pummeling from before but an easy drift, like these flakes are the laidback members of their party who have taken their time twirling and floating to Earth.

“Wow,” Beau announces blurrily. “I love snow.”

“Pffft,” Sam blubbers his lips, blowing smoke everywhere and when the hell did he join in? “Snow’s overrated. ‘S just frozen water.”

The song switches to “Around and Around”; I put my feet up on the coffee table and swig the Southern Comfort.

“Naw, dude,” Dean replies, from where he’s comfortably ensconced in Jane’s boobs. “You’re thinkin’ of ice. Frozen water.”

Sam stares at him for about five seconds, eyes watering. “What?” He blinks once, hard, and breaks into a coughing fit. “Oh man,” he chokes, shoving the bong away. “Now I remember why I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, quiet, you sixty-foot baby,” Heidi chides. “Here, hold still, this’ll help.” She brings the bong to her lips and sucks down a massive hit, shoulders rising and back straightening. She’s a teensy girl but damn if she can’t suck it down--or something. Dean howls and claps in admiration, which quickly turns to delighted laughter when Heidi crawls right over and seals her lips over Sam’s. She catches him with his mouth open, holding him in place with a fist in his overgrown bangs.

Sam squeaks a little, but sits still until Heidi’s poured out her lungs into his. When she draws back, smoke curls up out of Sam’s mouth in lazy rivulets and his eyes are at half-mast.

“Oh, man!” Jenn crows. “Look at his face, look at his face! _Nice_ one, Hi!” She throws a high five to her partner-in-crime; Heidi catches it in her small palm and promptly falls over into my lap.

Hel- _lo_ , the night is looking up. “Hi,” I greet her, leering.

“Shut up,” she mutters, taking the Southern Comfort from my hand. Her lips smile around the bottle’s mouth, though, and I am _so in_.

The record switches songs and the eccentric _plunk-plink-plu-plink-plink_ of “Sugaree” makes Dean’s feet hit the floor again. “I _love_ this song,” he groans, practically crawling over me and Heidi towards the front door. He misses it a bit and runs into the door jamb, which sends a glassy-eyed Sam into hysterics; Dean perseveres and makes his way inside. The music climbs higher.

_Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for me: please forget you knew my name my darling Sugaree._

Dean staggers back out the door just in time for the _shake it, shake it Sugaree_ part, and promptly swings his hips from side to side, snapping his fingers high in the air. Sam, from his place on the floor, is wracked with a fresh set of hilarity; even Asfar, perched on Beau’s knees and free of both smoke _and_ liquid, breaks into suppressed giggles.

“Oh for goodness sake, Dean,” Martha scolds, bustling from the other side of the porch, bottle in hand. “Turn it down, you’ll wake up the children.”

“Senora!” Dean cries, seizing her arms lightly and spinning her in place. “Oh, pretty lady, dance with me.”

“Dean,” Martha exclaims as he plucks the bottles from her hands. “Turn it down.”

Heidi sits up a bit in my lap and I slide an arm under to support her back. “This is always fun to watch,” she giggles to me, one stray to another.

Dean, who is possibly the single most charming and disarming stray ever to grace Martha’s doorstep, curls his arm around her waist and leads her into a slow, ambling two-step. Martha leans back against his arm and lets him, because in her experience (and mine), the charm of a stray is directly proportional to his/her damage.

They go around and around and the record goes around and around and the bong goes around and around and the snow falls down and down.

This is really good weed. Did I mention that?

It’s fucking freezing out, but Heidi’s playing with the hair on the nape of my neck and raising non-cold-related goosebumps. Jenn and Beau return to their stories of high times and combat maneuvers; Sam returns to the bench beside me and rests his chin on the back, watching Dean and Martha dance with a smile on his face that could make a Labrador puppy envious.

After a while it slips.

Dean and Martha dance slowly, talking to each other about God knows what. They step to the left and Martha’s face looking up is calm, patient. They step further around: Dean’s face looking down is so open it hurts to look at, smiling with drugs and love. A man dancing with a woman that’s the right age to be his mom.

I don’t check to see if John is looking, too. I leave Sam to his heartbroken, aching expression and turn back to Heidi.

 

Chapter 20: Thanksgiving Day, Part 3

I wake up early the next morning and it takes me a minute to figure out _why_ I’m wide awake, lying under Heidi’s slack weight, in a peaceful house when it’s not even freaking _light_ out yet.

Then I recall last night’s activities and realize that this peaceful, slumbering house will soon be filled with a very hungover Collins family.

Time for an evac.

I ease out from under Heidi and manage to locate about half my gear strewn about her small bedroom: jeans, jacket, over-coat, belt. No bra or shirt that I can locate; then again, Heidi and I hadn’t exactly been strategic about where we’d thrown each other’s clothes the night before. I smile to myself and take a moment to tuck the blankets around her sleeping body. Damn us both for being idiots, but it can’t really be helped. I shrug into my jacket and button it up the front, locate my boots under the bed, then go hunting for the final resting positions of those damned Winchester men.

John is the easiest to find: he’s wrapped up in one of Martha’s blankets on a Lay-Z-Boy in front of the big screen TV. Harlin, Simon, and Chase occupy the loungers behind him: the four are all pretty much identically positioned, like Incan mummies laid out in ceremony before the great God of Hi-Def. I poke John. “John.”

He wakes up with a silent jerk, eyes snapping open and body pulling away from me instinctively. “Wh--”

“Sh. Quiet, dude, unless you want your head ripped off.”

“By what?” he asks, still half-asleep and probably thinking of dragons.

“Horrors you can’t imagine,” I reply in all seriousness. “You able to drive?”

“Yeah,” he grunts, hefting himself up. “’Course. Where’s--”

“You wake Chase up and get him to fetch Larry. I’ll get your boys.”

In one of three guest bedrooms, Dean’s wrapped up in Jane and he’s harder to rouse. I mutter a reminder in his ear about the last time we stuck around for the after-party; that gets him out of bed in about 2.2 seconds. “’M I driving?” he asks, and falls into the wall. He’s still wobbly from taking down those necromancers.

I cringe and haul him upright. “Keep it the fuck down. This is a stealth mission here. Now your dad’s driving his truck and I’m solid for the Impala. You seen your brother?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, getcher butt downstairs. And don’t fuck anybody on the way out.”

He mock-pouts, but makes for the door fast enough.

I check and re-check every guest bedroom, the couches, the floors and the kitchen, but no tall drink of Sam presents himself. I grit my teeth and creep along the halls to the regular bedrooms; the snowstorm’s parted to admit a clear sky, and the horizon’s turning pink. Won’t be long before the bear trap snaps shut on our collective foot.

I’m just about to give up hope for a clean getaway when I pass by a half-open door and spot one enormous, hairy foot dangling over the foot of a bed. I poke my head inside and sure enough, the foot’s attached to a large lump of comforters and electric blanket, at the other end of which there is one shaggy brown head… and one curly brown head.

“Jenn!” I shout in a whisper. The curly head snaps up-- _bless those Army instincts, she’s probably operated a tank under the worst hangover imaginable_ \--and she blinks at me blearily. “You hussy!”

Confusion clears up and she grins right back at me. “What?” she croaks without an ounce of embarrassment. “He’s hot.”

I roll my eyes and nudge the sleeping giant’s exposed foot. “Sam, wake up. We gotta get outta Dodge before the Huns awaken.” A pillow muffles Sam’s groaned reply. I cock an eyebrow at Jenn. “Mind getting him downstairs ASAP? We got evac orders.”

She’s already rolling out of bed, naked as a Jaybird except for her argyle socks. “Right behind ya, babe.” She knows what to expect this morning, too.

I nod my thanks and head back out into the hall. Down the long row of closed doors, Martha’s coming out of her own bedroom with her hair askew and her thick bathrobe on. I wince in her direction and she takes the hint, tiptoeing down to me.

“You taking off?” she inquires and eyes me knowingly.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “Don’t think I want these Winchester guys exposed to the full nuclear fallout. They’re weird enough on their own without mutations.”

She smiles a bit but keeps up the steady All-Seeing Gaze. “You say goodbye to Heidi?” I shift my feet. “Kim.”

“I don’t change, Martha. She knows that.”

Behind me, there are thumps and groans as Jenn hauls a half-clothed Sam out of her bedroom and down the stairs. Martha breaks her staredown with me to take in this scene and toss Jenn an exasperated look; I use the distraction to my advantage and hug her. “Love ya, Mama-Bear. Go back to bed and barricade the door. Don’t come out until they’re all done tearing each other apart.”

She laughs, curling her fingers in my hair. “Think I might do just that. You bringin’ those boys back for Christmas?”

With all the weed and Southern Comfort, my brain hasn’t processed that possibility. I remember the years of silence between those boys and the spun-glass fragility of their interactions now. “I’ll let you know.”

She _hm_ s softly, too wise for her own good: she’s probably got the whole thing worked out in her head with super-powered mental telepathy or something. If she does, she never tells me. Guess things turned out better that way; if I’da known the truth right then and there, I might’ve run for the hills.

As it is, I stay ignorant and go downstairs after Sam and Jenn. She gets herself loaded into her pickup and takes off with a hoot and a wave; she’ll likely spend the morning down at the VA rehab center with all the old-timers who’re missing lungs and the young-timers who are missing legs.

I turn my attention to my motley crew. Sam is horking his guts up into the snow and Dean leans against the Impala, looking more than a little peaked himself. Larry’s hunched in the back seat; I march over and open up a door to chat. “Hey, Larry, how you doin’?”

“This is abuse!” he howls. “I was tied to a bed by juvenile delinquents!”

“Would you prefer to be tied to the hood all the way to Nevada?” I shut the door on his response and turn to Dean. “You ridin’ here or there?”

He pulls a face at Larry. “There. We actually goin’ back to Nevada?”

“Vegas, baby.”

Sam’s still pretty miserable when we pull out. I toss him a bottle of water. “Snooze it off if you can, kiddo.”

He groans and puts his head back on the seat. “Man. Haven’t woken up like this in a long time… can’t say I missed it.”

“Sleep cures all ills, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam,” he mumbles, smacking his lips as he drops off.

In the back Larry wisely keeps his mouth shut. I’ve got my own headache playing drums against my skull and I think he could tell that I was only half-joking about the hood ornament plan.

-o-

Sam wakes up six hours later on the New Mexico/Arizona border. “Oh, man,” he groans, sitting up. “Tastes like something died in my mouth.”

“Sorry, musta left my breathmints in the other jacket.”

He snorts in my general direction. “You’re a real bleeding heart, y’know?” There’s no real anger in his tone, though. It almost sounds familiar.

I smile and glance in the rearview mirror again. Larry’s fast asleep with his face pressed against a back window. In the pickup behind us, John and Dean have been awake and talking this whole time. John’s got his head back, thumping the wheel as he laughs soundlessly; Dean’s grinning at him, egging him on with words that I would give my left pinkie finger to hear.

It’s not them. Whatever split this family up, it ain’t those two; they’re shoulder-to-shoulder in the pickup cab, relaxed smiles and faces tipped toward each other. For all that Dean loves to be the one behind the wheel, he clearly loves having his father there even more.

So why didn’t he let the old man stay in the first place?

-o-

Another three hours pass and we’re in downtown Phoenix when we make a stop for gas. The pickup rolls in behind us blaring The Eagles and Sam rolls his eyes.

Dean heads for the restroom a bit too fast, though, and I look quickly to John. “He’s been kinda feverish the last few miles,” John supplies, frowning. “Keeps sayin’ he’s fine, but I think all the travel’s worn him out.”

Sam looks up sharply from convenience store selection of nuts. “You think the bullet wound’s getting infected?”

“Dunno. All the rest at Martha’s did him some good, but bein’ out and about wore him slick, I think. ‘Course he won’t _say_ that.”

I’ve already got it laid out. “Okay, here’s the plan. John, you go over by the cash register. Sam, you’re by the gum. When Dean comes out of the bathroom, I’m gonna walk up to John and tell him that Sam’s kinda sick. John, you suggest we get a motel. I’ll bitch about getting a room with Larry,” I gesture to the pudge in the Impala outside, “Sam, you start protesting how you’re fine. I’ll tell you that you’re not fine at all and that you should stay behind and get a motel room while the rest of us take Larry to Vegas. You protest that you don’t wanna stay here alone, there isn’t even good cable, whatever. Dean’ll fill in the blanks and you two will spend a cozy night in Phoenix. Awright?”

They stare at me.

“Goddamn, girl,” John says after a moment, subdued and maybe a little alarmed.

It falls out pretty much that way: John’s a shitty liar but Sam startles us all in his false sincerity. I swear he develops instantaneous dark circles around his eyes or something, ‘cause the kid looks like he’s at Death’s door, all the while insisting that he’s just fine and we are _totally_ not leaving him behind all alone in a strange city with no protection and… wow, he _does_ feel a little dizzy.

It’s a grandstand performance that leaves me wanting to applaud and John even _more_ alarmed. “I’ve raised two _devious_ kids,” he murmurs as he and I rearrange Sam’s gear in the Impala. I send a wide grin to assure him that that ain’t necessarily a bad thing.

Larry’s gone limp in protest, refuses to walk on his own; it takes both John and I to drag his sorry ass over to the truck. “You people…” he splutters weakly. For the third or fourth time in two days I cut him off by shutting a door.

“Awright, gentlemen,” I announce, laying a hand on the hood of the truck and leaning. “I’m tired, I’m pissed, and I’m horny. I _was_ hoping to swing by and see this six-foot African queen of a stripper named Chanelle,” John chokes a bit and Dean grins, “but _some_ people had to nip that in the bud.” Here I cast an extravagant glare at Sam, who slaps on The Puppy Dog Eyes of Doom™ (a cousin to Dean’s patented Glare of Righteous Fury™). “So, we’ll be back ASAP.” I saunter over to the passenger side and climb aboard.

Parked in front of the motel, Dean and Sam lean against the Impala and watch us go.

-o-

When we’re out on the road John casts a raised eyebrow in my direction. “What?” I ask, in the midst of disassembling my .45. We’ve compromised on the radio station, a milder form of classic rock than what I’ve gotten used to with Dean.

“You hoping they’ll patch things up while we’re gone?”

Give the man credit for observation: I worked it out so that _Sam_ stayed behind with the real invalid. “Worth a shot,” I admit with a shrug. Since he opened the door, I press a bit and ask, “You have any idea what’s got them both so high-strung?”

He’s already shaking his head. In the backseat, Larry’s conked out again; I’ve been slipping him some sedatives in his Happy Meals. John drops his voice anyway. “I dunno what Dean’s told you about anything,” he pauses when I shake my head, “but they were closer than close for years. Even after… after we found the demon that took my wife, they were hunting together. Partners. I…”

He pauses, searching for the words as he stares out the windshield. I listen, rapt, waiting for the clues that he knows but has never seen.

“I didn’t see them much in those days. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to survive that fight.” He looks down for a moment and smiles tightly. “I just wanted to keep from taking the boys down with me. Then we fought the damn thing and we _won_ … and I was still alive. All of a sudden I thought, maybe we could be a family again, the three of us.

“I rented out a house in Kansas City, sent ‘em both a message to come visit when they could. The two of them, though… it was the strangest goddamn thing, ‘cause it felt like the moment _I_ wanted to just stop and _be_ with my sons, they didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

He stops short for a while, stone still with his hands on the wheel. I keep just as still, not commenting or participating, just listening.

“I thought it was too late,” he goes on slowly. “Like I’d burned all the bridges down. All they wanted to do was hunt, keep traveling around. Didn’t want to see me much. It was almost a year, and I was just about to give up when Sam suddenly called and said he was moving up to Washington. He’d decided to go back to school up there… had a permanent address up in Seattle a week later.” He shakes his head, brows drawn together. “Not one word about Dean. I tried to get ahold of him myself… tried for months.

“Dean wasn’t hunting. I know that much; not a one of my old contacts had seen him. Didn’t know what he was doing, still have no idea. Only way I even knew that he was alive were these postcards that started showing up. No return address, just signed _Dean_.”

He pauses again, eyes narrowed as his mind turns it all over fresh. My own brain moves at mach speed, trying to make connections like a game of dysfunctional tic-tac-toe.

“Anyway,” he goes on, waving a hand that pretty neatly sums up his own helplessness, “after almost another year of that I moved up to be near Sam. He’d gone back into college and was about to graduate, finally, and start off on his own. Needed some help. And,” he shrugs unhappily, “he _wanted_ me up there.” _Unlike Dean_.

I blink, struggling to process these new pieces. “Did the postcards keep coming?”

John nods. “Sam had been getting them, too. Still wouldn’t talk about Dean or anything that’d happened… after a while, I quit asking. Wasn’t long after I moved up there, Dean showed up on the grid again, hunting.”

I sit back hard in my seat and wish to hell I had some caffeine. A good shot of caffeine, maybe a steak. Something that would help my brain work, here.

After several mile markers go by in silence, John mutters, “Yeah.”

He turns the stereo up and leaves me to my mental calculations.

It takes me about five minutes to figure out that maybe leaving them alone together hadn’t been the best idea in the world.

-o-

When we get to Vegas I cut every damn corner that I can; they know me there, thank God, and spit me out quick.

Walking out Larry-less, John looks sideways at my face. “You okay?”

I bark a tense laugh. “Yeah. Sure. If fearing certain doom is ‘okay.’”

That gets him tense, too. “You think…”

“I think,” I snap, “that I just did something really fuckin’ dumb, and we’d better book it back to Phoenix.”

 

Chapter 21: The Bomb

The second John hits the interstate, I’m on the phone to Dean; when the ring tone stops I don’t wait for a greeting. “The pudge is popped off, we’re on our way back. _Please_ tell me you’ve at least taken a shower.”

It takes Dean a couple of seconds to answer. “Powdered and perfumed. Used that new Herbal Essence, had the showergasm just like in the commercials.”

His voice sounds slurred and there’s music in the background. A bar. “You buying Sam a drink?”

“What, and let him cramp my style?” and the voice in the phone is not Dean. It is Pod Dean, back again with his mild amusement and freaky-deaky _calm_. A drop of ice hits my stomach and spreads.

“Awright,” I reply, careful to keep my voice neutral. “Try to remember you’ve been shot, dumbass. I’ve already buried one partner in Arizona, and the ground’s too cold to bury you.”

It’s a cheap shot but all my internal alarm bells are whooping and I’m not opposed to using my own scars as ammo. He pauses another few moments, then grunts, “Whatever.” It’s gruff and irritated, though, more Dean-like. That relaxes me just a hair and gives me space to think.

He’s in a bar, away from Sam. Between Sam’s genuine concern for him and Dean’s misguided worry over Sam, they wouldn’t have split up unless they’ve already had a tiff. Which means that Sam has been waiting to talk to Dean about something for a while and the second they were alone, he pounced. I clench my teeth and mentally kick myself in the nuts. _Note to self:_ do not meddle in the affairs of Winchesters, you’re clearly in over your head and misreading the _fuck_ out of the situation. “Well, keep the barstools warm for me, I’ll buy you a round when I get there,” I tell Dean.

“Actually,” he replies and fuckall, he’s veered back into Pod Dean, “I’m thinking we should jet pretty soon. I wanna check up on Jackie, make sure she made it home to her mom safe and sound.”

I take a breath in, let it out. “Awright. Sure.”

“See you soon,” he says amiably, and hangs up.

I flip my phone shut and tell John, “Drive faster.”

-o-

So by the time we hit the Phoenix city limits it’s after midnight on the Friday after Thanksgiving; the entire nation is either hungover and bloated or still drunk at the table. A thick snow has started to fall: the Impala’s still parked in the same spot and its body cuts a line in the white cover, leaving the pavement below untouched. It hasn’t moved, which leaves the bar across the street as the only possible destination.

When John throws the truck into park, he’s already staring at me. I keep my eyes fastened on the door and the window where we left Sam and Dean a few hours back. “Okay,” he says at last, and he’s more lost than I am in this. “What d’ya figure?”

“I figure,” I tell him, then pause to breathe and gather what little wits I have around myself. “I figure that those two were closer than close, and whatever 900-pound gorilla they’ve got in the closet, it’s gotta be a vicious one.”

John’s face pulls together tight, but he nods. While he wants to believe the best of his sons, the thought has crossed his mind. “So what do we do?”

“Get them the fuck away from each other fast as possible.” His face twists and I cut him off. “Do you want your family back together or do you want them alive?”

He nearly swallows his own tongue. “It ain’t that bad. No, no, listen. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, I raised these boys…”

“You raised them to be killers,” I snap. “God love you for it, ‘cause they’ll save the fucking world after they burn it down, but you raised them to see darkness.” I punch open the door. “The darkness looked back, John.”

Before we’re even in the bar, the tone of the room hits me and brings everything up to Defcon 3. It’s a combination of anxiety and anticipation, the same cocktail you get from watching _When Animals Attack_. Even the biggest peacenik has some secret, shameful excitement at the potential for a good fight and right now, Sam and Dean stand on the razor edge of one. Dean’s got his back to the bar, upper body slouched over its counter; I’d call him nonchalant if I didn’t see the whites of his knuckles gripping the bar’s corner. Sam stands in front of him, every lumberjack-inch of his body radiating anger: his voice is low and he has one finger pointed straight into Dean’s chest.

I throw caution (and my life) to the wind and step right up to them. “Hey, boys. The hell?” I don’t move closer, appearing to remain neutral; but all my weight is on the foot closest to Dean. I like Sam, but his brother is my boy.

Sam’s stone-sober or thereabouts and he backs off instantly. His eyes look dilated, though, and his mouth works around the tightness before answering. “Hey, Kim. Hey, Dad.”

Beside me, Dean breathes like a racehorse for two seconds, then mutters in my direction, “Barstool’s warm,” and turns around to the bar.

I’d like to haul Dean off straight to the car, but that takes maneuvering; he’s dumb enough to disagree for the sake of disagreement yet bright enough to recognize reverse psychology, which limits my options. The bartender’s hovering close, hand under the counter. “You mind grabbing us a booth?” I ask John without turning. “We’ll be right over. Hey, man, four beers.”

John hesitates, wondering where ‘get them apart as fast as we can’ went. Right now that’s the length of a bar and he says (casually enough, bless him), “C’mon, Sammy, we gotta figure out what we’re going to tell Diana when we get back up to Seattle.”

Sam knows he’s being handled but goes with it. I pass them two beers from the cautious bartender and slide the fourth to Dean as I take the stool next to him. “So we headin’ north after this round?”

“Yeah. Sure.” His voice sounds like a plastic bag that’s been packed too full, stretched to the breaking point. “You get payment for the skip or what?”

“They know me in Vegas. They’ll mail it wherever I tell them.”

“What, you scared to leave me unsupervised?”

His tone turns aggressive and I meet it and his eyes with an opposing calm. “I don’t need to know, Dean. Whatever’s got you and your brother worked up, I’m not asking and I never will.”

Dean chokes on that, sudden fear and pain rising. His eyes slide past me and I know without checking that they rest on Sam. “Maybe you should, Kimmy.”

“I know you. Look at me. I _know_ you, Dean. If it was all that important, you’d tell me. I don’t have to ask.”

He shakes his head once, hard. “Bullshit. You dig around all the time, tryin’ to figure me out.”

I take a breath, ‘cause that’s true. “If you don’t want me knowing this, whatever it is, then you got reasons.” I shrug and take a swig from my beer. “I’m not gonna ask. Now, you want to get the fuck out of Dodge or what?” I want to meet his eye but don’t dare quite yet. It’d be too much, too soon and he’s 100% skittish right now. Never look scared animals in the eye, it’s a sure way to get your face ripped off.

After a minute he grunts, “Yeah. Just lemme pee.” He gets up and heads for the back, the flickering “MEN” sign. I twist around and check the others: Sam and John sit by the door. We’ll have to go past them on the way out, but they’re pretty deep in conversation.

I stop and look harder. _Sam_ is deep in conversation and maybe he isn’t as sober as I thought. John looks frozen, his eyes wide as they take in his son’s flushed, desperate expression. Sam’s leaning forward, his hands raised in what looks like supplication. Begging for understanding. He’s gonna spill the fucking beans, too close to the edge and nothing like his brother: Sam will repress and repress with the best of ‘em, but when the door cracks open, everything floods out.

Dean stands stone-still, halfway to the bathroom and three-fourths of the way to violence. He’s looking at the booth, too.

He gets to them first: the bartender demands payment and I have to chuck every bill in my wallet at his head before he’ll shut up. I reach the booth in time to hear Dean’s quiet, “--telling him?” Maybe he’s not as drunk as I thought he was, ‘cause he sounds completely in control.

Sam’s gone just as still and quiet.

“Okay,” Dean says, “let’s tell him. Let’s tell Dad all about it.” He widens his stance, settles in, and turns toward the man who raised them.

“Dean,” Sam chokes, “don’t--”

“Don’t _what_ , Sam? Don’t make it ugly? There aren’t many ways to dress it up. You’re the one that wants to _talk_ about this, so guess what? We’re gonna fuckin’ talk. There was a girl,” Dean tells his father. I might as well not be in the room, or exist. “And she called herself--”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Sam shouts, his voice dropping an octave into someplace deep between his ribs and he half-rises before his thighs run into the bottom of the table and he falls back. “ _Don’t you dare fucking TELL HIM HER NAME_. I loved her too.” His voice falls apart on the last bit.

Dean reels, a reaction to the break in his little brother’s voice that is pure Pavlovian. Then he straightens and steadies.

“You left. _You fuckin’ left us, Sam_.”

Sam’s hands stand in fists. “I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know because you never _told me_ , Dean. You let me think that you two were together and okay. _I didn’t fucking know_.”

Dean scoffs. “Yeah, because you didn’t _want_ to know. You never gave a shit about either one of us.”

It pushes all the air out of the space between their bodies until there’s nothing but a vacuum them in the epicenter.

“Course, I shouldn’t complain,” Dean goes on, his eyes pinned to Sam. “I gave up, too. I left her to die. Took me ten fucking months and I barely did anything else… just looked for her everywhere, when I wasn’t getting piss-drunk.”

“She didn’t want you to find her,” Sam cut in, talking over his brother.

“Right. Exactly. She didn’t want _me_ to find her,” Dean spat back. “She wouldn’t have left if you’d stayed. You’re the one she loved, not me.”

“That’s not--”

“Where do you think she is right now, Sam?” and Dean’s voice is barely above a whisper. “You think she’s in a ditch somewhere? You think she’s been _raped to death yet?_ ”

The words are about an inch out of Dean’s mouth before Sam’s up and swinging. Dean takes the first hit with a roll of his head and comes back just as fast. Nothing Pavlovian in this response; no hesitation, no love. Their eyes narrow to slits in their twin masks.

These are not two brothers having a fight. These are two motherfuckers that want to _kill each other_ , and can.

-o-

It takes me, John, the bartender, and two barbacks: between the five of us, we punch, wrestle, head-lock, and pry Sam and Dean apart. They don’t pay us any mind except as obstacles to each other’s throats. I’m pretty sure that Dean headbutts me at some point, ‘cause the next morning my eyebrow swells up to balloon levels and I know that I was at Dean’s back the entire time, simultaneously trying to haul him off and protect him from the worst of the others.

The bartender’s screaming about cops by the time one of the barbacks nails Sam in the nuts and brings him down. Dean would go to the floor, too, if I didn’t have my arms strapped across his chest. His shirt feels wet underneath my arm and I know he’s fucked up the bullet wound in his side. He’s still fighting, though, pulling against me as he goes for his hunched-over brother.

I look across Dean’s heaving shoulder and meet John’s eyes. He gets the ticket and takes a better grip on Sam. Then the old sonofabitch _lifts his son up_ with a grunt and puts him over one shoulder. He has his own wounds from the brawl and staggers a bit, but leaves the bar on his feet with his groaning youngest child dangling down his back.

In their absence, I hook a leg around Dean’s ankle and fling him to the wood floor. A howl pops free from his lungs when I land on top. “Get the fuck off me, bitch,” he wheezes. His eyes look wild, no recognition in them between the pain and more pain.

I put my hand right over his side and push, which has the double benefit of slowing the blood flow and stopping him cold; his eyes roll back in his head and he shudders, goes limp.

“Gimme a towel,” I snap around the blood on my face. Fuckall if I know whose it is.

“No fuckin’ way,” the bartender snaps. “Get the fuck out or wait for the cops.”

I leave Dean’s wound long enough to haul myself upright. “You gotta record, motherfucker?”

He takes a step backward but his glare doesn’t waver. I nod. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I can make life a living hell for you. Now,” I lean down and drag Dean’s wallet out; he’s got quite a wad in it and I toss all of it to the brute, “you get all of that if you let this dumb fuck lie on your floor for another two minutes. You can have money or you can have me on your ass. Choose wisely.”

He looks at the money and at Dean, his eyes narrowed. “Two minutes.”

I take him for his word and drag through Dean’s pockets after the Impala’s keys. When I haul ass to the motel parking lot, John’s on his way back to the bar: we meet in the middle and don’t wait for pleasantries. “Dean?” he rasps. Think he took a blow to the stomach.

“Banged up. Sam?”

“In the truck. We’re north in five seconds. You taking Dean--”

“--not if I can help it. Don’t need any more heat and hospitals will ask about a gunshot wound.”

He nods, hesitates, and breaks wide open. “You got any clue what--” he gasps in a rush. _I raised these boys_.

Everything in me feels locked down tight. I’m not gonna ask, I never will. “No fucking clue, John. Get north _now_.”

He does. I bring the Impala around to the front of the bar while his pickup disappears into the snowy night. Hauling Dean out involves pain on both our parts: he wakes up enough to moan when I drag his ass across the threshold. No one inside moves to help me.

-o-

When he wakes up Dean stares at me with feverish, confused eyes. He doesn’t trust my presence, can’t understand why I’m still here.

We’ve got no money and we’re gonna need a motel long enough for me to re-stitch Dean’s side. The snow has thinned out and we’re half an hour into California; there’s a glow up ahead that might be dawn or the Rapture and if it’s the latter, you’d better know what to do about it, motherfucker, ‘cause I’m following you and I’ll follow you to the end of the world so help me God.

-o-

I get us a room somewhere in the dead space east of LA in order to stitch Dean up. He’s unconscious or faking it, which is handy ‘cause my stitches aren’t all that great: I have a natural lesbian aversion to sewing. It’s good enough, though: at dawn I throw the blankets over him and collapse into the other bed.

Something wakes me up a couple hours later. Just a feeling, a tickle in my Spidey-sense. He’s not moving but I can tell from his breathing that Dean’s awake. I lie there until then his bed creaks.

The second I hear the rustle of clothing I know that he’s gonna try to slip out on me. The fucker.

It takes me another five minutes or so to figure out how to handle it. I roll over straight to my feet. Dean freezes instantly, one arm pinned to his side, swaying like a tree in wind. “Morning,” I greet him and walk straight past into the bathroom.

I pee, drink a handful of water straight from the faucet. When I come back out he’s in the same spot, a sweater sagging between his hands. He looks at me, and bruised green eyes pin me in place. It’s the starved look of a broken man and a lost boy, hopeless and furious; there’s nothing in him right now that _isn’t_ wounded. It hurts my stomach but he’s the one that flinches, trying to pull it all back in and can’t.

I let my gaze drop to the meager possessions that he’s gathered then return my eyes to his. “Dean. I hunt people for a living. You go somewhere and I _will_ find your ass.”

His eyes blink without comprehension. I’ve got more stitching to do, but I’m not up for it tonight. I go back to my bed and lie down. After a while, he does too. He ain’t full-broke yet, that’s gotta count for something. Lord, please let that count for something.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 22: Threesomeinhighschool

Dean stays quiet for the next couple of weeks, locked up tight and licking his wounds. The hole in his side gets puffy and sore, but pulls back from the nasty edge of septic; the other wounds are gonna take longer, though, and there isn’t much that I can do for him there. He tolerates my ministrations without complaint, but beyond that he’s got a billion “DO NOT ENTER” signs up.

After puttering about in Southern California, I take us up the coast to San Fran. There’s a java shop I know down by Castro Street with a Polynesian grandmother at the window; I get us both a massive cup of coffee and cinnamon rolls while Dean stares down the hill at the water far below. Mist rolls up over the city, glowing white in the sun. It’s sunny but cold, the second week of December, and Dean’s got the collar of his leather jacket turned up against the constant wind. Past him there’s a Christmas display in a department store window. He’s still and dark in the early morning, a line against the cheerful lights.

I told him I wasn’t going to ask and I can’t afford to break a promise, not now and not ever. It’s still early to tell how we’re going to handle this; Dean’s been too quiet for me to pick up any signals. John called about twenty-four hours after we’d split up. I gave him a stat report and told him not to call again. Until Dean lays the cards out, I’m not making a move.

He hasn’t been near a woman since Phoenix and neither have I.

I walk back out to Dean and he wakes up from his staring contest with the water. “DUI offender,” I tell him. “Missed the arraignment and wasn’t at his boyfriend’s house. The bondsman’s an old friend of Donnolly’s, called me first.”

“You got friends in Papau New Guinea, Kim?” Dean inquires, raising his eyebrows at me over the rim of his cup. It’s the most he’s said in a week.

“Not any that I invite to dinner. I _like_ my head.”

The ghost of a smile skitters across his mouth. “Who’s this drunk?”

“Gerard Van Bailey.” I pass him the crappy black and white printout of Van Bailey’s mugshot. “27 years of age, though he reported it as _24_ when questioned by police.” Dean snorts. “Lives right on Castro Street. Gonna be interesting.”

“Oh, Christ,” Dean groans. “I do _not_ want to die by strangulation from a feather boa.”

I squint sideways at him as we head downhill. “You’d look good in feathers. Might loosen you up, get in touch with your feminine side.”

He scowls, shakes his head. “Tried that.”

That perks my attention right up. “Really?”

Dean blushes and his scowl deepens; he hasn’t been sleeping enough and he probably didn’t mean for that to slip. “We’re changing the subject.”

“The hell we are.”

“Where does Van Bailey’s boyfriend live?” His ears are red from more than just the cold. “Stop looking at me, Watson.”

“Not until you tell me the details of your little adventures in gender orientation.” When he busies himself with the coffee cup, I purse my lips elaborately and consider the options. “You never went to college, so you don’t get to use that line. No big sister, so you can’t claim that she dressed you up.”

“You’re like a terrier, you know that? A dyke terrier.” If Dean was any more red, I’d worry about unconsciousness.

“I’d say a drunken Mardi Gras incident, except you’d be too busy exorcising all the ghosts…” He starts speed-walking and I let him go, cackling to myself.

-o-

Van Bailey’s twinkie boyfriend has that special brand of grating self-righteousness that only the Christian Right and the flaming gay can pull off. He answers the door in a pair of Ugg boots and Spandex shorts the size of a handkerchief. “Warrant, please,” he snips, putting out one well-manicured hand and looking us up and down with disdain. His eyes look jumpy, though, and there’s a fine sheen of sweat over his skin.

Dean flashes his license. “We don’t need no stinking warrants, kid. Bounty hunters. Let us in or we’ll let someone _with_ a warrant know about all that crystal meth you’ve got.”

His twitchy eyes get wide and he backs off. “Bounty hunters?”

“And I’m a lesbian.” I smile wide, showing all my teeth. “I do not ascribe to the mythic sanctity of male anatomy. Lemme in.” That sends him scurrying. I turn my grin on Dean. “Nice catch.”

“Thanks. You’d better respect the sanctity of _my_ anatomy.”

The Twinkie hangs around us, flitting and twitching, though he at least has the decency to put on a shirt. “So,” I conversationalize in his direction, “this is Gerard’s fifth alcohol-related offense. You like boyfriends that drink?”

He’s gathered a measure of his brittle armor around him again. “Do _you_ like a job that lets you pretend to have a dick?”

“No, see,” Dean answers before I can., “for that, she has a massive dildo.” He cuts a look in my direction, all snake-eyed smirk, and heads into their bedroom.

Awright. We might be okay.

“Redirectional sarcasm,” I tell the Twinkie, “is extremely useful when you don’t have a better answer. Have you tried to make him get help, or are you the enabling type?”

By the time I’m done he’s on the couch sobbing. “Just sit here,” I murmur, patting his gel-encrusted head. “We’re gonna try to find Gerard on our own so that you don’t have to give him up, okay?”

Dean eyes me when I come into the bedroom. “You do something to his anatomy?”

“Hell no. He’s a go-go dancer, lord knows where that thing’s been. You got anything good?”

Dean shows me the box of bagged white powder. “Good old crack cocaine. And a uh, number.” He spreads the scrap of paper between two fingers. “Dealer?”

“My guess. C’mon, we’ll run a trace on it.”

We leave after gently extracting a promise from Le Twink to call us if Gerard shows up. “It’s gotta stop,” I tell him firmly, a hand on his skinny shoulder. “It’s gotta stop before it gets worse.”

Dean’s face goes dark suddenly and he practically stomps out of the apartment. I catch up to him by the elevator. “What the hell, Dean. Is it that time of the month?”

He scowls at me. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“ _That_ ,” he snaps, waving an arm behind us toward the apartment. “Don’t pretend to care about people when all you want to do is get information. Maybe you get off on manip--”

“First of all,” I spit back, low and calm, “lower your freaking voice. Second of all, he’s wearing makeup to cover the bruises. Apparently all the arrests he’s been through have made Gerard irritable.”

The elevator dings open and I move inside. He hesitates in the doorway, not convinced and glaring after me. “So that excuses it? You wanna tell me that you’ve got nothin’ but his best interests in mind?”

I sigh and pin the doors open with an arm. “I mean everything that I say, Dean. Yes, it benefits me. And it might also save him from an abusive boyfriend. You wanna call that emotional manipulation, you go right ahead but the end of the day, I’ll take the option that _doesn’t_ leave him with bruises every night.”

I retract my arm and the doors close. Dean takes the stairs and meets me outside, brow still drawn, but it’s more in thought than anger.

-o-

I keep us moving, because if Dean goes flying off the handle I don’t know how I’m gonna counter it.

Place of residence, place of work: Gerard is a bartender in the same go-go club where Le Twink dances. Dean falters just a bit at the door, then gives a hurt-sounding sigh and follows me inside. Fortunately it’s still early in the day and he only gets a couple of sharks circling him… little ones really, more like piranhas but just as toothy.

I give the bartender a thirty-dollar tip and he catches on quick. “What’s this for?” His eyes slide past me and widen. “Oh, please tell me you’re his pimp.”

“Straight,” Dean says instantly.

The guy smirks and puts a hand on one jutting hip. “Don’t knock it until you’ve knocked it, baby.”

“I did. Not my thing.”

I almost choke on my whiskey and give myself whiplash, I turn my head so fast. Dean’s teeth crack when his mouth snaps shut and he turns bright red again. “Have you, uh, seen Gerard lately?” he stammers, avoiding my eyes.

I whip around just as fast and point my finger at the bartender. “Don’t you dare answer his questions until he answers yours.” A foot connects with my shin but the bartender grins slow and wide. He’s my new best friend.

My new best buddy in the whole wide world folds his arms. “All right, hot stuff. I saw Gerard yesterday when he got off work. _When_ did you have your little experimentation?”

Dean makes several inarticulate noises, shifting from foot to foot. “ _You_ question him,” he finally spits at me, and turns on his heel.

“Can’t,” I announce and swallow down my whiskey. “I’m drunk. I might miss something important.”

“And Gerard’s _really_ , _really_ hard to find,” the bartender drawls, leaning across the bar counter. “He gets around _a lot_. Who knows how many more queer bars you’ll have to visit?”

Dean gets a few more steps before he halts, head slung low and probably staring at his feet. My co-conspirator and I occupy ourselves with a refill of my glass. There’s another pained sigh and then Dean shuffles back. He says in a defeated rush, “Threesomeinhighschool. Where does Gerard go after work if not to his boyfriend’s?”

I keep my face neutral and drink. The bartender raises a brow. “That isn’t his only boyfriend. There’s another bartender that works here, Mark Wilson. Gerard sometimes goes home with him. How many dicks in this threesome?”

“All three,” Dean replies, his face aflame. “Where does Mark live?”

The bartender’s already scribbling down an address. “Top or bottom?” he inquires wickedly as he hands it over.

“Top!” Dean practically shrieks, and runs out.

Laughing so hard my stomach hurts, I lean across the bar and fold the interrogator in my arms. “I love you.”

He coos, kissing my cheek. “You’re not his girlfriend, are you?”

“Hell no. He’s my dyke tyke. If you see Gerard around, give us a call, there’s a nice bounty on his head and I’d bet that he’s been stealing drinks from work.”

He’s nobody’s fool and raises another eyebrow. I sigh and pass him a twenty.

Outside, Dean chokes, “Not a word.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I murmur and follow his angry stride down the street, smiling to myself.

-o-

Mark Wilson gives us more of a problem: he chucks groceries at our heads and threatens to call the cops. When they show up we’re sitting outside in the Impala with our feet kicked up; they take down our names and license numbers, check out our copy of the bond contract, and leave us there. Wilson, watching from his front door, darts back inside. “Oh, yeah,” I mutter. “He knows where Gerard is. Doesn’t want us here.”

“You think he’s inside?”

“Mebbe, mebbe. We’re not allowed to enter without a positive ID on his presence, though. We’ll just have to wait it out.”

Dean relapses into his seven-year brood; I sigh to myself and settle in for a long night.

-o-

A whole eight hours of silence go by before Dean suddenly asks, “You care about everybody?”

I’ve been scribbling calculations about my bank account and have to do a mental back flip from subtraction to ‘oh, fuck, he’s talking’; I peer at him from over the top of my reading glasses to buy myself time. Dean looks at the fogged-up window instead of me, so I know that this is Important. I set my notepad aside and put my back against the passenger door. “I give people the benefit of the doubt. It’s up to them to prove themselves as assholes.” He cuts me a quick look, green eyes full of uncertainty and some fear, too; he thinks he’s an asshole and I just haven’t caught on to him yet. “’Course,” I amend, “it goes both ways. It’s up to people to prove themselves as golden, too. Either way, I think I’d know.”

His lips twist. “Really. You think you’re that good?”

“I think I’ve _had_ to be that good.”

That doesn’t appease him and he looks back out the window. “Gerard,” he reports after a moment.

We kick our doors open at the same time. Gerard Van Bailey, a tall sonofabitch with a gym-cut body, spots us quickly and his eyes go wide. He reverses, scrambling for the house, in time for Wilson to slam the door on his face. He howls, kicking and punching at it, before Dean grabs his shoulders. The dude twists and spins, throwing an elbow that Dean ducks, before I knock him hard in the stomach. His breath leaves his mouth in a pop of alcohol fumes and his eyes roll around as I push him flat.

“Guess you wore out your welcome,” Dean snarls, putting his knee in Gerard’s back with a bit more force than necessary. I hurry to snap on my plastic restraints so as not to give him an opportunity to work out more aggression.

Gerard wakes up a bit when we shove him into the back of the Impala. “Wait…”

I push the door shut and circle around to the passenger side. “Whatever bribes you’ve got aren’t any better than the bail you posted. Save it.”

“No,” he chokes, struggling to sit up. “You don’t understand…”

“Lie the fuck back down,” Dean spits.

“He’ll kill him!” Gerard blurts, pushing against the back of our seat with his knees, trying to roll himself upright. Dean lunges across and grabs the guy’s hair, flinging him bodily back against the seat. Gerard rolls too far and his forehead smacks hard against the door handle.

“Dean!” I shout, grabbing his jacket and hauling him back. “Dean, _stop!_ ”

He turns on me, lips curled… and subsides. Not much and he still looks half-murderous. In the back, Gerard pants through his teeth, pained; I drag my eyes away from Dean’s and fix him with a glare. “Who’s gonna kill who?”

“Mark,” he rasps, “is gonna kill Tommy. He owes Mark for the meth we bought on the side and Tommy used the money to post bail for me. I was trying…” he squeezes his eyes shut in anguish. “I was tryin’ to work it out with Mark. I told him the money’s at Tommy’s apartment.”

His eyes open and meet mine. I have always been able to read people; my gift, my curse. I twist back around and look up at Wilson’s house.

“So why’d he send you out the front?” Dean asks harshly, unconvinced.

There’s a light on in the house, but no movement at the windows. “’Cause he’s going to Tommy’s apartment himself,” I murmur, and punch the door open. The stone steps are wet and slippery, but I take them two at a time and kick the door wide open with momentum. It hits the wall behind it and almost smacks me on the rebound, but I’m already through. No shout of protest or alarm replies to my entry and I hustle along the main hallway, Glock drawn and kept low. A small window looks out back and I pull the curtains back one-handed. On the driveway outside there’s a perfect square of dry pavement; considering the mild but steady rain that’s falling, the car’s only been absent for a few minutes and we would have been too distracted to hear an engine start.

I sprint back out the front. Dean stands at the bottom of the steps, his whole body wound tight and stretched between the twin dangers of leaving a skip unattended or letting me walk into a building alone. “He’s gone,” I snap, dropping down the stairs and slipping on the last one. He catches me by both arms and pulls me against him. “Tommy’s the Twink, Dean. I knew he was lyin’ to me about something but I wasn’t sure what.”

His eyes spark and bore into me. “What, and you just didn’t mention it?”

I wrench away, already moving back to the car. “I thought he was lyin’ about his promise to call me. Fuck.” I drop into the car and lean across the seat, eye-to-eye with Gerard. “Did you ever hit Tommy?”

“What?”

“ _Did you ever hit Tommy?_ ”

“No!” Gerard shouts back.

We look straight into each other for about 2 seconds. Dean’s somewhere at my back, warmth and tension.

I whip around and scramble out of the car. “Get on the phone to the San Fran PD, tell them to get to Tommy’s place.”

Dean looks at my face. He does it.

-o-

Later, when we’re sitting in SFPD HQ while detectives process paperwork simultaneously for our bond, and charges of first-degree assault, possession, and intent to traffic against Mark Wilson, Dean murmurs, “You knew just from looking at him.”

He’s not looking at me again and I’m a little tired for this to be Important but Dean’s an unpredictable sort. I lean back in my chair and study his profile, the side of his head, his ear. “Yeah, I did. I know people, Dean.”

There’s a rack of pamphlets across from us, all about drug abuse and self-defense courses. Dean studies them closely. “Are you ever wrong?”

“Yes. Sometimes. I was wrong in Phoenix and I thought Gerard was beating up Tommy. I don’t think I’m wrong about you.”

That earns me another swift glance full of such wretched pain that it takes my breath away for a second. The room moves around us, busy and oblivious; phones ring and tired voices answer. Dean leans back and tucks his chin down, talks so low that I can barely hear. “What if I told you that I raped a woman once?”

Tommy the Twink is at the end of the hall, clinging to Gerard’s shoulder. I watch them, and breathe. “Did you?”

“Yeah.” It’s just a whisper. I can feel him looking at me now, searching my face. “Other stuff, too.” I meet his eyes and he flinches again, but holds. Shaking, maybe, a little too close to the edge of the massive hole that’s opened up since Phoenix. It occurs to me that _he’s_ been waiting to see how _I_ would handle this, whether I’d decide that I’ve been wrong about him and would leave him in the lurch.

“Watson and Thompson?” The desk clerk is an older guy with burns on his face. “We’ve got your paperwork prepared.”

-o-

Thank God for the interruption, ‘cause this here’s one of the more important things that I’ll ever have to say and I’ve got to phrase it just right. Dean lasts through the signing and the statements, but I can tell he’s a cracked eggshell now. When we walk to the car he’s all pulled in on himself, braced, waiting.

I catch him by the driver’s side and crowd in, pinning him against the car with one hand in his hair. His eyes open up wide and he tries to pull away, too certain of my answer.

“You’ve seen me at _this_ enough times to know that I’m not often wrong,” I tell him. “So that’s not what you’re asking. You wanna know if my love is conditional. It’s not.” Dean’s lips twist, trying to close himself against me and I shake him loose by the grip I’ve got on his shoulder and his hair.

“I will never leave you,” I say to him. “Ever. Whatever you’ve done, whatever you do. If I’m wrong about you, then I’m wrong; _I don’t think I am_.”

I let him go and circle around the car. We’re both shaken up and he’s not gonna want me looking at him until he gets himself stitched back up. I tug both the passenger side doors open and start gathering all the trash along the floors and seats. My hands shake and I feel the weight of what I’ve just done: I’ve basically given him free license to go to town, do whatever he wants. If I’m wrong, he’ll fuck me up something fierce. I’ve _been_ wrong before: the shitfest in Phoenix proved that much.

I don’t think I’m wrong about Dean. If I am, God help me for it. I take the trash and dump it in the can on the parking lot’s corner. When I come back to the car he’s already inside at the wheel. It’s dark and the roads will be slick but hell, after what I’ve done I might as well trust him as a driver, too. I climb into the passenger seat.

He turns to me the second I’m inside and catches me by the face. Pulls me over and hugs me. There’s nothing sexual in it, which is the only reason I let it happen; it’s brief and chaste, hands holding my hair and my shoulder in grips that mirror my own a few minutes ago, but with much more gentleness. When he’s done holding onto me, he leans his cheek against mine. Part of me recognizes that he’s doing all this so I can’t see his face, so I keep still.

The windows fog up and the rain keeps pouring down. It occurs to me that this is something like a wedding, with promises and little public-appropriate displays of affection; the thought makes me chuckle. “What?” Dean asks thickly.

“Dude, you are _not_ carrying me over the threshold.”

I can feel him grin against the side of my face; he follows that train of thought. “No, I expect _you_ to do that.” I laugh right in his ear. He snickers, then sobers. “You’re never gonna ask?”

“No.”

I can’t fix him, never in a million billion years. But I can hold on tight. We turn the wheels inland away from water.

 

Chapter 23: The Dinosaur Chronicles, Part 1

June finds us in Denver: we spend a week reeling in a 23-year-old kid accused of credit card fraud. The whole thing turns out anti-climactic… we catch up to her outside of her grandma’s house and she doesn’t even run, just puts her hands out at her sides. Her grandmother has a hand on her shoulder and nods to me. “You make sure she gets sorted out, now.” They’re both crying.

We don’t cuff her until we’re outside the police lockup and it becomes mandatory. Dean takes her up to the window and turns her over, but I can tell he doesn’t like any of it much; I bump his shoulder with my own when he comes back. “Little jail time will do her good. Sometimes people need a wakeup call.” I leave unspoken the possibility that maybe she won’t get better; maybe her cellmate will be a bank robber and she’ll get sucked into a whole ‘nother level of the criminal life. Everyone chooses to be what they are; no one gets a free ride.

Also left unspoken is the memory of his life B.K. (Before Kim) and the mountains of credit card fraud _he_ had amassed; it could easily enough be him walking into this jail with his head hung low and tears in his eyes… okay, maybe not the tears, he’s not a _complete_ chick. It isn’t, though: everyone chooses to be what they are and in the A.K. era, Dean chose to fly straight.

We shuffle down the street, yawning: the girl may have given up at the end, but she led us on a goose chase before lying down. “Can’t fall asleep,” Dean insists, opening his eyes anime-cartoon-wide. “Too wired. Need food.”

“Food good,” I grunt.

We find the nearest restaurant and Dean doesn’t even look at the menu before ordering a plateful of calamari. I can’t stand the stuff but Dean’s addicted; I order a massive array of tacos and devour them all, undoing the top button of my pants. About halfway through the meal our second (or thirteenth) wind evaporates and we both crash, staring with glassy eyes up at the TV above the bar.

“TV good,” Dean murmurs. I swear to God he’s drooling.

“Mmmm,” I grunt back. “Must make bladder flatter and then I will be gladder.” Dean snorts beer through his nose and doubles over, snot and foam flying. I escape to the bathroom.

When I get back Dean’s all but forgotten about his sinuses or the embarrassing things that he’s smeared across the front of his shirt. The TV has his full, spine-straightened attention. I shake myself awake. “What’s up?” There’s a newscast on, with a rather bewildered-looking anchor.

“People are flying.”

I blink. “Come again?”

“In Dinosaur. It’s East of here, near the border.” Dean absently wipes at his shirt. “Just _one_ person, apparently… some kid. He’s been sighted all over town; they just put up a home video of it.”

I keep my eyes trained on his. “Yeah, and Bat Boy is in league with the Pope to conceal the truth about an alien baby Jesus.”

He searches for it when we get back to the hotel, though; I come out of the shower to find him hunched at the computer. “It’s on CNN.com.”

I rub a towel through my hair slowly, then drop it on the bed. “Okay. Flying kid. You’re serious?”

The laptop tips shut and he shrugs neutrally, standing up to stretch. “Dunno. Won’t know ‘til we check it out, will we?” The grin he sends me is wolfish, gleeful; he knows he’ll get his way, damn him.

“Is this gonna be like that time went to see that jackalope in Missouri and it turned out to be a rabbit owner with Photoshop?” I flop down on my bed, suddenly boneless. “I thought you were gonna bite that guy or something.”

Dean snorts, crawling atop the comforters on his belly. “He woulda deserved it,” he declares messily, his face squished against the bed and his eyes already closed. “Damn near… broke my heart…”

-o-

The highway into Dinosaur, CO is called Brontosaurus Blvd; the exits say Tyrannosaurus Triangle, Ceratosaurus Circle, and 3rd Street. “They missed a spot,” says Dean.

“Are you _kidding_ me with this?” I lean out of the window to peer up at the massive sculpture of some veggie-looking dinosaur whose long neck looms right over the road.

“Nope. I’ve been here once before, long time ago.” The mention of his past makes me check him out of the corner of my eye; his lips look soft at the edges, though, not a trace of bitterness. A Sam-free memory; good, ‘cause I don’t want to spend my time here waiting for something to trigger storm clouds. Back in North Carolina I had to wait in the car for six minutes while he stood on the side of the road and glared at a diner.

We get a motel (on Antrodemus Alley, fer Chrissake) and barely have to question anyone: the whole town’s already abuzz about it. “ _I_ saw him,” the manager’s daughter declares, eyeing us like she expects laughter. She’s already got an audience of customers, a couple of doubtful janitors, and her disapproving mother. “The middle school is right next to the little kid’s school: my whole class saw it. There were a bunch of kids out on the field running around and this… _thing_ going back and forth above them.” She swings her hands through the air, little swoops and spins. “We thought it was a _bird_ or something, but then he turned around and hovered, just like this.” Her sneakers smack against the linoleum as she hops off the counter to spear her arms and legs, like starfish missing a limb. “We could see he was human, then. He stayed like that for awhile then he flew away over the hill.”

I put my elbows on the counter and lean over them. “Welcome sign said there were only 2,000 people livin’ here.” A glance at the mother includes her in my question. “You know the bird boy in question?”

Mommy goes on high alert instantly. “You reporters?”

“No, ma’am. We’re professional bounty hunters; but my partner here, he can’t resist this stuff… he’s got the skeleton head of Bat Boy in the trunk. Ow.”

Mommy looks back and forth from me to Dean, but her chatty Cathy daughter plows on through, preening in all the attention. “I didn’t know him, but I’ve seen him around. I think he’s in fourth grade.”

“Well, thank you, sweetie.” Dean pastes on his most blinding smile; he’s usually _shit_ with people, but on occasion he’s handy with the females (in more ways than one). “And thank you for the room, ma’am.”

Outside the door, his smile disappears and he punches my arm. “Dude, why’d you have to tell them about my Bat Boy skeleton?”

Our room has dinosaur wallpaper, headboards with long brontosaurus necks that stretch above the mattress, and the miniaturized replica of a T-rex head that Dean promptly tries to put his head inside like a lion tamer at a circus.

-o-

There are three fourth-grade classes at Dinosaur Elementary School… they’re divided into Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. “Awright,” I mutter, “somebody needs to _cut it the Hell out_.”

Dean smirks. “Aww, I think it’s cuuuute.”

“Exactly. I’m going to have to kill someone.” A door opens beside us and mini-adults surge out. They all come up to about my hip, but I cringe backwards like they’re Black Dogs. “Gah.”

Dean nudges me sideways and we stand on the wall until the herd of disease-carrying screamers pass, accompanied by their harried-looking adult. “Okay,” he mutters, “you might wanna keep the threats of violence down while we’re inside a school, sweetheart.”

“I cannot _handle_ kids, Dean. I can’t believe we’re doing this just to settle your dumb curiosity.”

A passing aide pauses to frown in our direction; Dean throws her another blinding smile then drops it as soon as she turns away. “Look, flying kid is weird. Where there’s weird there’s a--”

“A case, I know.” I sigh and re-settle my shoulders. “Fine. How d’ya wanna find this kid?”

“Excuse me.” The aide has apparently decided that yes, we do look suspicious after all, ‘cause she circled back. “You need to leave now.”

Dean straightens and steps away from the wall. This isn’t his department, though, so I try to shove my child-related skittishness aside. “Guess y’all have gotten a lot of reporters and such hanging around.”

She folds her hands in front of her, prim and proper except where she wants to rip my head off. “We’ve had more than our fair share of a _lot_ of things lately, miss.”

“Well that’s why we’re here,” Dean replies smoothly. “We’re security agents, y’see.”

“Ms. Janey Walker called us,” I add, slipping the particular plastic identity in question from my wallet. Dean follows suit; we usually keep that card on top.

The aide examines them both, frowning. “Janey isn’t in today…”

I pull out my best ‘startled’ eyes. “She isn’t? Oh, okay, um,” I check with Dean, “we were supposed to meet with her at 1 pm sharp today to discuss security measures for the building. We came in all the way from Denver, but… I guess she forgot. We’ll call her back, arrange for something in a couple of weeks. Sorry to bother you.” I turn smartly on my heel.

That flips her. “Wait, wait…”

She gives us a quick tour, explains all the recent intrusions by reporters, investigators, and conspiracy theorists; she asks for our advice. I give her the best security rundown I can (‘cause Hell, I can’t stand kids but that don’t mean I don’t respect people who _can_ ) on ways that they can keep folk out; Dean, meantime, does a full circuit of “perimeter analysis” before meeting back up with us at the front door.

“Thank you so much,” she shakes both our hands thoroughly. “I’m so sorry that Janey plumb forgot about you.”

“Oh, don’t trouble her with it _at all_ ,” I assure her. “Seriously, don’t mention it. I wouldn’t want her to feel guilty.”

Outside, Dean jabs my arm. “You psychic, sweetheart?”

I blink. “Wha?”

“Seriously.” He looks at me sideways, eyes narrowed a little. “You’re scary good sometimes, y’know that? How’d you know to say Janey Walker sent us?”

“That was the hotel manager,” I tell him. “She’s only there part-time, has her daughter work the weekday afternoons. She’s gotta have another job to be wearin’ clothes as good as she was and she clammed up so fast when she thought we were reporters. I figured she either worked at the school or she was involved with it well enough for folks to know her.”

He stops beside the Impala and puts his hands on his hips. “And you say that you and I are alike.”

“Almost, brother, almost. We’re scary good at different _things_ \--wouldn’t be smart to send me out on a search for signs. You find anything?”

“Nothing in the building that brought up EMF. Got a buzz out in the field, though, where the kid said she saw him flying. Grass looked okay so we’re not dealin’ with unholy ground or some kind of demonic presence. Best guess would be some kind of spell or enchantment _and_ I checked out the fourth-grade classrooms. Everybody was on recess and there weren’t any readings, but they had one of those little attendance charts on the wall that I guess is supposed to shame all the kids into mindless obedience.” His smirk turns a little bitter and he opens the car door, flops inside.

I follow and we both hasten to roll down the windows: today pushes 100 and the leather seat scorches my back. “Take it you weren’t one of the good little boys. Who else isn’t?”

“Patrick Fisher. AWOL since the Night of the Flying Kid.”

-o-

Patrick Fisher is 9, had an appendectomy two year ago, was involved in a traffic accident at age 4 (just a fender bender, no one hurt), and is the product of two homes. His parents divorced earlier this year, though both still live in town. Lotsa haggling in that split on both sides, so I’d guess that it wasn’t acrimonious.

Mommy lives in the heart of town while Daddy’s got a one-man ranch on the outskirts. The town sits in the epicenter of a dozen cattle ranches out here and I grimace, roll up my window when we drive past the paddock of dirt-and-shit stained bovines. Dean, though, leans out the window and inhales deeply, then chokes. “Oh, _God_ that smells horrible. _God_.” He takes another deep sniff, laughing and moaning. Men.

Barney Fisher is not so appreciative of Dean’s idiosyncrasies; he takes a shotgun out and points it right at us both. “Get outta here.”

“It’s been weird, hasn’t it? Terrifying.” Dean keeps his palms flat at his sides and the damn fool’s people skills only kick in when there’s bodily harm threatened. If I kept a gun at his head 24/7 I’d bet that he could win Miss Personality. “You don’t know what’s goin’ on exactly with your kid and that scares the crap outta you.”

Barney’s eyes down the shotgun barrel waver just a little, flicking to the side. Through the screen door I can see the smudge of the former Mrs. Fisher standing at her ex-husband’s side.

“Look,” I murmur as smoothing and soothing as I can manage. “My name’s Kim and this is Dean. That amulet he’s wearing? It protects his mind from being possessed by demons. This ring,” I hold it up my left hand to show them the band that encircles my thumb, “is silver, and blessed by a shaman down south to grant me the same kinda protection. We know about all sorts of freaky shit. We might be able to help.”

Barney wavers again. “My son’s not a freak.”

“Right now he is. Whole town’s talkin’ about it. Now you can either hole up here forever or you can let us see what we can do for you. Your choice.”

Mrs. Fisher steps up to the screen door. “Let them in, Barney.”

“Karen…”

“Look,” she says sharply, “ _you_ don’t know what’s happening. None of the doctors know. _Pat_ won’t tell us. Unless you’ve got any other bright ideas, _I_ say we let them in.”

The shotgun lowers a bit, but not out of any acquiescence. “And you always get to say what happens, don’t you? You’re _always_ right.”

“Well, _lately_ , yes,” she snaps. “I made sure he was doing okay in school, bought him new jeans. You took him to Mexico for a trip and he came back _flying_.”

“ _Nothing happened in Mexico, Karen_.” Barney drops the shotgun’s butt to the floor with a thump, hand still tight on the barrel. “How many times do I have to tell you, I didn’t _do_ this!”

Dean and I glance to each other out of the corner of our eyes. Yep, nothing acrimonious here.

-o-

Pat Fisher is even less inclined to cooperate. “Go ‘way!” he shouts through his closed bedroom door when his momma comes knocking.

“Baby, there are people out there might be able to help…”

“I don’t _want_ help,” the kid bellows back, “I want you to _go ‘way_!”

I smile with nothing but my lips. “Nice kid.” Beside me, Dean snerks just a little, too quiet for them to hear.

“You wanna complain about me,” Barney mutters on the other side of Karen. “ _I_ sure as hell don’t remember him bein’ this mouthy. He’s been like this since you brought him home.”

Karen turns away from the door sharp as a tack. “Gee, maybe that has something to do with you sniping at me all the time?”

“ _Me_? Oh, that’s rich. Do you even _hear_ yourself anymore?”

“Well _forgive me_ please if I’m a little stressed out by everything that’s been going on!” Karen’s voice rapidly approaching a bellow.

“And I haven’t? He’s my kid too, Karen, I have just as much right to be upset as you do!”

“ _Clearly!_ ”

The kid’s door rushes open and a four-foot boy with brown hair screams, “ _Shut up, shut up_! Both of you, I’m so tired of you guys fighting!”

It takes me a second of automatic recoil from someone below age 15 to realize that Dean’s gaze is on the floor. The kid’s feet hover about an inch above the carpet. Dean and I meet eyes; that’s one question answered.

Karen takes a breath and tries to get things back under control. “Pat, baby, this is Dan and Kim.”

“Dean, actually. Hi, Pat, what’s… up?” His gaze drops again to the air molecules between the kid’s toes and the floor.

He glares at us. “What do you want? Go--”

“’Way, we heard you the first time,” Dean cuts him off. “Kim and I, we hunt ghosts, demons, evil shamans, necromancers, and bog creatures for a living. Now, you don’t happen to have seen any of those types around, have you?”

That shuts the parents up, at least; the kid stares at us with unconvinced eyes. “You’re lying. That’s a lie. None of that’s real.”

“Says the amazing floating boy,” I point out.

He flushes. “That’s different!”

“Oh yeah? How so?”

His mouth shuts in a thin, petulant line. “Mom, Dad, I don’t wanna talk to them.”

“Hey, look, kiddo,” Dean brings out the Kid Voice, “I know this is weird but trust me when I say, we’ve seen _so_ much weirder. If you just talk to us, we can help you…”

“ _I don’t want help_ ,” he bellows with his little-kid lungs. “And I don’t wanna talk to you!” The door flies shut again.

When Karen gets it back open, she sighs at the empty room and the open window. “He’s flown up to the damn roof again.”

-o-

“Wow,” I mutter as we walk back to the car. “That was incredible.”

“No kidding,” Dean exclaims, glancing over his shoulder at the house. “The kid was just _hovering_ the whole time. Didja notice, when he yelled, he went _up_ a little, like--”

“Actually, I meant the fact that we finally found the one kid on the North American continent that _doesn’t_ like you.”

Dean blinks, then scowls. “Shaddup.”

“No, seriously, Dean, you should open a daycare service, you’d make a fortune. You find out anything from the mom?” We’d taken the parents to opposite ends of the house (though opposite ends of the _country_ woulda been preferable) to question them. The dad had been gruff and recalcitrant, and it took me a good twenty minutes to find out that he knew diddly-squat. He’d taken the kid on a snorkeling trip to Mexico four weeks ago; they were home two weeks before the flying started; they didn’t go anywhere strange or do anything unusual while there.

“Naw, she had nothing,” Dean grumbles. “Did a scan of the room, too. Traces of EMF, but no focal point. There’s gotta be something here that’s setting it off.”

“Curse? Maybe the one of the parents pissed somebody off recently? Besides each other, I mean.”

We reach the car; Dean slides behind the wheel. “Naw, it hasn’t got the teeth for a curse. I mean, c’mon, you could do boils or rotting limbs and instead you turn the kid into Rocket Man?”

I eye him, purse my lips. “Hm.”

His head snaps in my direction, instantly alert. “‘Hm’? What’s ‘hm’?”

“Nothing, just… if the kid doesn’t have boils or rotting limbs, then… what’re we even doing here?”

Dean scowls and cranks the key, starting the ignition. “The kid’s _flying_ , Kim. In case you haven’t heard, that’s not exactly normal.”

“Dean, c’mon. We’ve walked away from cases before, when there wasn’t anybody that really needed help. Abnormal doesn’t always have to be evil, and _normal_ isn’t always right.”

He pauses, hands on the wheel. Looks at me. Puts the car into gear.

I bite my tongue and get settled.

-o-

It takes him a few hours to settle _himself_. I occupy my hands with cleaning the guns and sharpening the blades; after a while, he joins me. “It’s just weird, that’s all.” He shrugs. “If we don’t find anything worth looking into tomorrow, we’ll leave.” He’s got what he was here for, anyway, what he’s always after with this kinda shit: confirmation that even normal people can have weirdness visited upon them, and maybe the inside of the circle isn’t that different from the outside.

I glance over and pass him the whetstone. “’Kay, sounds good. The less time I have to spend around mini-adults, the better.”

He snorts, shakes his head. “You got the maternal instincts of an alligator, sweetheart.”

“No, no, dude, alligators are _good_ mothers. I have the maternal instincts…” I tap a cleaning rod against my jaw, thinking. “…of a fish. They eat their young.”

That earns me a laugh and he leans backward in the bed, flipping open the whetstone and drawing the edge of a knife across its surface with a low hiss. I love that noise. “Well, at least you’ll never end up like the Fishers.”

“Fuck, no. Man, I can’t imagine how those two thought that getting back together was a _good_ idea. Screw curses, _they’re_ gonna kill each other.”

“Heh, yeah. They’ve only been back together a week, though; I give them another four days before bullets start flying.”

I pause. “They’ve been back together a week?”

“Yeah. That’s what the mother said.” He catches my look. “What?”

I set the cleaning rod aside and bend over my folded hands, thinking. “Your kid starts _flying_ and you wanna put your marriage back together?”

Dean frowns and shrugs. “I figured that she came home _because_ of the flying. Wanted some help with it and all.”

My frown deepens. “She’s got family not far from here. Her dad and mother live about 100 miles south; they own a chicken farm. If she’s looking for help, she’d take them there; it’s more isolated, too, less prying eyes.”

Dean flips the whetstone back into its cover and leans forward, watching my face. “Whaddya figure?”

“Dunno. Just weird, I guess. I’ll ask her about it.”

He grins. “Oh, _now_ you’re interested?”

I pick up the cleaning rod and point it at him. “ _You_ like freaks of nature. _I_ prefer the freaks of humanity. _That’s_ the difference.”

-o-

At about 3 am a hundred fire, ambulance, and police vehicles go tearing past our motel room. Dean’s already awake, was probably on point from the first siren. Bastard’s used to dodging the 5-0. I roll up, instinctively grabbing for my coat. “Wha? What?”

“Dunno,” he says, rising. “Doesn’t sound good, though.”

It isn’t.

The Fishers’ place, or what’s left of it, is lit up in red and blue flashes. Some of the flashes look off-kilter from the others, though, and in the dark it takes me a second to figure out that several of the cop cars and fire trucks rest on their sides or roofs. People scramble everywhere, gurneys get pulled out, and a couple of ambulances go screaming past us as we pull up.

I pop out and grab a passing fireman. “What the hell happened?”

He shakes me off. “Fuck if I know. Get outta here.”

A glance to Dean confirms that ain’t happenin’: we stride between the vehicles and triage, then stop short as one when we spot the house.

It’s been literally torn in half: the north walls and roof have broken outward, judging from the fragments strewn across the lawn. In that direction too are the overturned cars, most of which look half-crushed. My first thought is an explosion, but the pattern of debris and wreckage doesn’t look consistent with a blast radius. “What the fuck, man,” I breathe to Dean.

“I dunno,” he mutters back. “But whatever it was, man, it was _big_.”

There’s an EMT sitting on the ground near us with a hand over his bloody face. I drop down next to him. “Hey, you conscious?”

He jerks, his breathing shallow and rapid, but answer, “Yeah. Who’re you?”

“Any port in a storm, dude.” I jerk my chin at Dean. “Flashlight.” He takes his out and shines it on the guy’s face. Underneath the blood he looks pretty young, must be in his early twenties. “What’s your name?”

“James.”

“Well, James, let’s have a look. C’mon.”

He’s got a gash on his forehead, nothing deep but wide as my forefinger; I rip a wad of cloth off his uniform and fashion a field dressing. “What the hell happened here, James?” Dean asks, his eyes intent.

James chokes with pain as I dab at his forehead, then swallows with a click. “We got… we got called half an hour ago. Neighbors down over the hill called, said they heard something strange, like… like an explosion. A roar. We came out here and… and the whole house was like this.” I slide the bandage in place over his wound and he whimpers miserably.

Dean drops low on his haunches to get level with the kid’s one visible eye. “Didja see anything? Anything that coulda caused this?”

James swallows again, then speaks in a high, thin voice. “There was something in the dark. Something huge. I didn’t get a good look at it, but… it threw my ambulance right over. I don’t remember anything after that.” He shudders and slumps.

I glance at Dean; in the illumination of flashlight his face looks grim. Setting my jaw, I rise to bellow, “Hey, this guy’s got a head wound.”

With frantic paramedics trying to take care of their own, it’s more than easy for me and Dean to slip into the house. The lights don’t work when we try them, so I pop out my flashlight, too. Barney’s in the hallway under a wall, head knocked in and his hand flung out towards his son’s door. I swallow and tell Dean, “You try to find Karen.” Then I shoulder forward and scramble over the debris, not giving him an opportunity to argue. There’s no one alive in this house: I don’t have to be psychic to look at it and tell you that.

The epicenter of whatever caused this chaos is definitely the kid’s room. There’s no ceiling left and a jagged line bisects the floor, cutting it neatly in halves of “normal” and “gone.” It looks like a full-sized dollhouse with the cover ripped off, the normal, little-boys-room interior exposed to night sky and darkness.

There isn’t much of the little boy in question. My flashlight beam travels across a mess of bones and guts perched right on the jagged edge where the floor gave way. For one wild, stupid moment I think of any one of Martha’s grandchildren; then I shut the thought right down, clamp it all tight. Freaking out about the kids is Dean’s department, not mine. I dig out the EMF reader and flip it on: it mutters fitfully, but there’s nothing distinct at first. Then I make a turn and it jumps, screeching. Dean’s better at this dance of discovery than I am, but I don’t want him in here, not one bit; I start to do low sweeps of the room my eyes on the meter.

It goes into the red and I stop, peering with the flashlight. There’s a glint on the floor underneath, of course, a whole lot of mangled _something_. I take a breath and keep it in as I reach down. The _something_ is still wet and warm and thank Jesus I didn’t let Dean in here ‘cause it’s all I can do not to lose my stomach _and_ my mind. I nudge aside the gore and my fingers touch something cold and smooth.

I make it back outside the door before I start puking. Dinner comes up warm and acidic; I heave and heave until there’s nothing left, one hand on the wall and the other pressed to my midsection. Barney’s right there and a little bit of my vomit gets on him. It’s so ugly and base that I shudder, squeezing my eyes shut to avoid a full-on freakout.

Dean comes back to grab me, drags me out the back door and sits with me on the step. He really doesn’t know what to do about comforting me; it’s usually the other way around. Finally he just wraps himself around me, his muscles tense and grip uncertain.

When I get my breath back in order I mutter, “Dude, I’m getting puke on your coat.” That detaches him in a hurry without any embarrassment on either of our parts. While he’s busy fussing over his jacket, I wipe the thing I grabbed off on my jeans then hold it up to the light. It’s a necklace made of black stones in an odd, Aztec-looking design.

“What’s that?”

“Gives off more EMF than anything else,” I answer, holding up the meter to demonstrate. “It’s gotta be what caused this.”

“Full points, Watson. Damn, I’d bet they picked it up down in ole Me-hi-co.” He pronounces it in the proper Spanish dialect, as much to distract himself from the blood still coating the black stones as anything else.

“Question is, what exactly does it do? I mean, he had it for a week before he started flying around. And this…” I indicate the house. “How’s this tie in?”

The air around Dean changes. “Put it down on the ground right now.”

I do it instantly. He’s silent after that for a moment, eyebrows drawn together, and I sit there while he works it out. This is his department.

His eyes still on the necklace at our feet, Dean asks me, “What would you ask for, if you could have anything in the world?”

I open my mouth, then close it. “A million bucks,” I finally lie, but he’s not expecting honesty.

He meets my eyes. “And if you were a 9-year-old boy?”

It dawns with a shiver down my spine; I answer slowly, without looking away from his eyes. “I’d wish I could fly.” Another shiver, my mouth popping open. “And then I’d wish that my dumbass fucking parents would get back together. God _damn_. It’s a Monkey’s Paw kinda deal!”

“Something like that,” he answers grimly. “Three wishes, and they all get fucked up. They probably bought this thing on the side of the road, no idea what it was. It mighta been passed from hand to hand for _years_ without anyone figuring it out; grownups aren’t in the habit of wishing for fishes.” He darts a quick glance at me, acknowledging my momentary lie; I blink and nod, taking the point. “Kids, though… kids would just say it aloud for the hell of it.”

I twist around to look in the back door. I can see all the way through the house out the other side to the path of destruction. “So what the fuck was his last wish?”

“I dunno,” Dean replies, toeing the necklace, his mouth tight. “But I know one thing for sure: we gotta get rid of this necklace like _yesterday_.”

“Sounds good,” I grunt and heft myself upright. My stomach turns over but I hold it down.

We both eye the necklace, then each other.

“Rock paper scissors?” Dean asks brightly, but he’s already reaching down to scoop it up. “You get to carry around the next deadly object of _power_.”

I snort and turn away, heading around the side of the house; no way in Hell I’m going back inside. “Sounds great. Just don’t start asking for naked women to start falling from the sky. They’d probably all land wrong and break their necks.”

“Heh, maybe I should wish…”

“ _Don’t_ , Dean, you asshole.”

“Fine, fine. I like my dick the way it is, anyhow. Hey, Kim,” and his voice changes so fucking fast. “Is that a Velociraptor?”

I stop. Turn.

It stands about fifty feet away by the barn. The structure’s got a big ole floodlight at the roof’s peak, so we can see it pretty well. Green light glints on dark, pebbled skin and casts weird shadows all over it. It’s not moving when I first look so my brain says _statue_. Then it cocks its long, reptilian head at us; its eyes are on the side of that narrow skull and while it can probably see okay straight-on, its side vision must be better. My logical, homegrown brain says _animatronic_ , but who keeps a fucking life-sized animatronic dinosaur in the back yard?

No, this is a flesh-and-blood dinosaur, standing in the Fishers’ back yard, eyeing us.

“Utah Raptor, actually,” Dean corrects himself, perfectly calm in that way he gets when he’s totally not. “The movies got it wrong: Velociraptors aren’t that big. This guy looks about my height. You with me, Kimmy?”

“Holy motherfucking shit.”

“Yeah.” He pauses and chuckles, low in his throat; he’s crowded against my back. “Whaddya wanna bet that Pat’s last wish was to see some _real-life dinosaurs_?”

 

  
Chapter 24: The Dinosaur Chronicles – Part Two

The raptor cocks its head back the other way, like we’ll make more sense in its other eye. “I’ve seen this part of the movie,” Dean mutters. “It didn’t end good.”

“Holy fuck.”

“You said that already, Kimmy.” Dean’s voice sounds like iron. He processes shit like this so fast it makes my head spin: I’m still stuck on the river while he’s already building the bridge and screaming at me to catch up.

I lurch back to full functionality and whip my gun out. The raptor hasn’t moved at all, beady eyes fixed on us; it’s got the wickedest fucking claws you’ve ever seen, long talons on its… hands, or whatever you call a dinosaur’s appendage attachments. There’s another claw on its foot, though, one huge curving number. It’s covered in blood.

The giant lump of my instinctive panic-- _predator predator claws talons eat me look at those eyes_ – is difficult to swallow, but I manage. “Well, guess that takes care of the cows.” I put my back against the house’s solid structure, Dean pressed against my right side. “You remember anything else from the movie?”

“They have great vision,” Dean reports, his breath quick and short. “They’re really fucking smart. They hunt… _fuck_ , they hunt in packs!”

Around the other side of the house, the screaming has already started, though at least one person is shooting. The raptor in front of us flinches at the noise, raising its head to give a short, loud bark that would curdle my blood if it weren’t already ice. “Can bullets kill them?” I ask, already cocking my gun.

Dean’s lips curl back from his teeth. “Let’s find out.”

We fire in unison, something we rarely do unless cornered: better to let one person run out before the other and have time for a reload. It turns out to be the right move: the dinosaur-- _fucking dinosaur_ \--leaps and flails, hissing in pain when the first rounds hit it. It’s so damned fast, even hurt, and races away into the night just as both of our guns simultaneously click on empty.

Dean reloads smooth as silk. “We gotta destroy this necklace.”

“You think they’ll just… disappear?” My voice wavers a little and I curse inwardly, swallow again.

“Dunno. Either way, we gotta get back to the car and get the fuck outta here. Tandem.”

I slam the clip home into my gun, take a breath and nod. “Tandem. Move.”

“Moving.” Dean goes first to the corner of the house; I put my back against the structure again and scan the darkened yard, my heart racing. “Move,” comes Dean’s voice, and I answer, “Moving.”

We inchworm our way around the side of the house to the front. The flashing lights there make every shadow appear to shift and I’m grateful to have Dean at my side again, moving together across the front. There aren’t any raptors in sight but there’s plenty of carnage: several bodies lie on the ground, pretty much in the same condition as Pat. When we come around the corner of an ambulance, though, we’re met with several answering gun barrels.

“Whoa!” Dean cries, throwing his hands upward. “Whoa whoa, human here.”

Crouched against the ambulance are about a dozen folks in various states of injury; three cops stand tall before the others, guns raised. “Drop your weapons!” one shouts at us.

I step up. “Look, the things that you _really_ need to be worried about here have neither hands nor weapons. You saw them; we saw them. Cut the crap and let’s all get outta this alive, okay?”

Another one of the three swallows, his eyes darting all around us. “What _were_ those things?”

“Whatever you wanna believe that gets you through the night,” Dean snaps. He’s never had an ounce of patience for anyone who denied their own eyes. “You see ‘em, you shoot like Hell. You can figure out the rest later.”

They don’t lower their guns totally, but they’re listening. James is there, slumped against the ambulance and staring at us. “Any of you fit to drive?” I ask the group at large.

“I could,” the scared cop responds.

“No, not you. You’re gonna need all the shooters you can get.” I cock a brow at the others, three paramedics and six firefighters. The med that’s holding onto James gets to his feet. “Right. Two cops up front with you, ready to shoot out the windows, one in back with the others. You drive back to town--”

“ _Lookout_!”

Dean and I spin as one, already shooting. The raptor is actually in _mid-leap_ , all its claws out and extended towards us, mouth open. We hit it in midair and when it lands it tips forward, slumping. One of those beady eyes rolls at me and I fire one more shot straight into it. It twitches and drops at our feet.

The group stares at us open-mouthed. “--and you raise the alarm,” I continue. “You guys got a tornado warning system here? Air raid, anything?”

“W-we got an earthquake siren…” James murmurs faintly. “Don’t know how many people… know about it.”

“Set it off,” I tell him grimly. “We got about three hours before everybody starts waking up, goin’ to work, goin’ to _school_.”

“Jesus,” one of the cops breathes. “You think there are more of those things?”

Dean points his flashlight at the raptor. “I think _this_ isn’t big enough to do _that_.” He points to the house.

I let that sink in, watching their faces. “If y’all don’t get back to town and raise the alarm, there’s gonna be a fuckin’ massacre.”

The med, bless him, is already in motion, gathering James and yelling at the others; I’d want him at my back any day. Dean pulls up one of the cops. “Is there a hardware store in town?”

-o-

The ride back to town passes in tense silence: we only get one raptor that runs in front of the car, but there are _things_ moving in the shadows. They race alongside us before pulling away, unable to keep up and heading for easier targets. Dean’s jaw is hard and he pushes 60 even on the back roads, skidding across gravel; I’m on point, so when the raptor leaps in front I pop right out the window and fire without hesitation. The one-two punch of bullet and a hard hit from the Impala’s front crumples it. Dean howls through his teeth at the sound of damaged metal, but keeps going.

The troop of emergency folk heads straight through the center line of town, back towards the fire station: I’d bet my eye teeth that it’s more defensible than the cop station and the med knows that. Dean hangs a hard right, skidding across Main Street, and we spot the Rangely True Value store. It puts up one hell of an alarm when we bust the front window in and Dean flings his arms over his head as he races into the store’s depths. The only light comes from the parking lot outside and shines on the rows of home appliances and manly-man accessories; I snag us a pair of earmuffs each and chase after Dean.

He heads straight for the blowtorches, shoving his way through them. I poke him with the earmuffs and bellow over the noise, “Stone won’t melt!”

“No,” he shouts back, “but whatever’s holding the stones together will. Find a sledgehammer.” I nod and take off.

The earmuffs muffle most of the alarm but it’s still a pretty loud whoop; I switch on my flashlight, flicking it over aisle signs as I sprint past. Hammers turn out to be on the other side of the damn store and they startle me with their number and selection. Jesus, exactly how many phallic objects do guys _need_? I mean _I_ could use a few, but I’ve got the excuse of anatomy.

Something moves in the dark, towards the front of the store. I whip in that direction, gun and flashlight raised. A whole lot of nothing looks back at me: the flashlight beam doesn’t go that far. Between the alarm and the earmuffs, I can’t hear anything. I crouch low, exposed… which Dean is, too. Fuck.

Okay. _Get it together, Watson._ I’ve got a gun, a flashlight, and a sledgehammer, but only two hands. After a moment of internal debate, I opt to shove the gun in its holster and yank a sledgehammer off the wall. If something comes at me, at least I can take a swing at it; the hell if I’m gonna turn my light off.

As it is, I make it back to Dean without anything lunging for me; when I get there he’s got gloves over his precious little hands, sunglasses over his eyes, and is burning away at the necklace, breaking the links apart. I drop the sledgehammer next to him, then wave my hands in front of his face. He slips the glasses up onto his forehead and pulls a face, gesturing. I use Hand-Signing-for-Dumbasses to indicate the front of the store; his face sets grim and he nods, point taken. I go on guard, flashlight scanning the rows of screwdrivers and paint cans, just _waiting_ for something toothy.

The blowtorch’s light flickers along the walls, but between it and my flashlight there’s still not enough to see properly. I squint, my muscles bunched up in some primordial reaction: I’ve been hunting with Dean for a good year now, but nothing’s ever brought out this level of automatic fight or flight response in me before. It’s pure caveman and those things out in the dark are more than primitive enough for _that_ metaphor. There’s Dean, making fire behind me; there’s me, crouched near the opening of our little aisle/cave, and there’s the scary, possibly-claw-filled darkness. Wonderful metaphor, I should write stories if I live long enough.

The torch’s flickering light dies and I glance behind me. Dean straightens away from the pile of dark stones that remains of the necklaces, whipping the sunglasses off and tucking them away. He makes a swinging gesture at me that for a moment looks like he’s masturbating; I squint at him and he repeats the gesture impatiently. It takes me a second to realize that he wants me to swing the hammer, not “swing the hammer”; he’s already getting out his journal and flipping through it for some incantation or God knows what. I reluctantly flick the safety on my gun and shove it into the back of my jeans; even worse is having to give up my flashlight. Dean’s got his trained on the journal pages, which leaves us far too little illumination for my liking and man, when did I turn into a 4-year-old? I grit my teeth and heft up the sledgehammer, weighing it between my fists.

Dean’s mouth moves, reciting; I can’t hear a damn word but apparently the necklace gets the message just fine ‘cause the scattered pile of stones starts to glow red-hot and angry. There might even be some slither-smoke action. I _know_ the proper term is ectoplasmic steam or whatever, but dammit, I have a rule against naming that sort of shit. According to Dean, it’s distilled filth: all the rage, hatred, and meanness that a spirit or ghost can pack into the spaces between air molecules. Shit like that shouldn’t be dignified with a proper name.

Finally Dean’s fingers flick in my direction and he grins; he knows I like this part. The blunt end of the sledgehammer feels like a pendulum in my hands as I swing it forward, then back, up, around, and down onto the stones.

On contact, a shock goes up my arms. The stones shatter across the floor like scuttling cockroaches, but it feels like the spirit got out one last volt of energy. My hands ache and shake, numb; I drop the sledgehammer and make fists, then spear my fingers out, grimacing in pain.

I turn to Dean, worrying about side effects and half-pissed that he probably knew there’d be some pain, and find him staring over my shoulder, his eyes wide and one of his palms raised.

My fingers still feel clumsy as they clutch for my sidearm, but then Dean’s hand clamps around mine. The storeowner shouts at us both, shotgun waving around the direction of our heads and we both duck instinctively, forearms stupidly raised. “Whoa!” Dean yelps, close enough for me to hear through the earmuffs.

The storeowner goes on shouting, sounding for all the world like Charlie Brown’s teacher. “We’re not robbers!” I shout. “We had an emergency, we’re not _taking_ anything.”

“Git _down_ on the _ground_!” Well, that’s discernible.

“Listen to me!” Dean bellows. “You’ve gotta turn the alarm _off_.”

“Git _down on the ground_!”

“Get down!” Dean howls, reaching forward. I hold him back, ‘cause if it’s a choice between Dean getting shot in the face or this guy gettin’ et’ by dinosaurs, I’ll pick the latter any standing round I’ve got. Don’t know what that says about my moral fiber and I don’t care: Dean will choose someone else every time. Someone’s gotta be around to choose _him_.

A fucking dinosaur hops up on the store owner’s shoulder and attacks his neck; guess that answers the question of whether the damn things will disappear along with the necklace. This isn’t a raptor: it’s about two feet tall and skinny as a stick with a long whipping tail. Its teeth must be plenty sharp, though, ‘cause they cut right into the guy’s skin. He drops the shotgun and grabs at the thing with both hands, trying to pull it off him.

It takes balls of steel to shoot in such close quarters, but damn if Dean’s got ain’t ‘em. The bullet wings it, causes just enough pain for the little monster to let go and drop to the floor. Due to its size, though, the damn thing’s nigh-impossible to hit again: Dean and I both squeeze off a couple of shots and get nothing but linoleum. It darts away into darkness.

The store owner slumps against his shelves, a hand clapped over the red gush at his neck. I catch his other flailing arm and pull him against me. “Hospital!” I shout to Dean.

He scoops the shotgun off the floor, not looking at me, staring out into the dark. “Not yet,” he shouts back. When I follow his gaze, for a moment I think that a bunch of will o’ the wisps have found their way into the hardware store.

Then I realize, no, that’s the reflection of Dean’s flashlight in _dozens and dozens_ of little lizard eyes.

Dean grabs my shoulder, reaches past me to the store owner. “Alarm! Switch off the alarm, it’s bringing ‘em in!”

The guy gurgles and waves an arm towards the back of the store. I get my shoulder underneath his and start to haul him back; Dean covers our 6, shooting at the eyes. We barely get to the end of the aisle before I know we’re not gonna make it. The guy’s fading fast, bleeding out straight from the jugular. When he slumps and goes slack against me, I swing his weight around to the ground; his sightless pupils stare up at me and I pull away, breathing hard.

The lizard eyes have multiplied in the dark. Dean’s got one clawing at his pant leg and there are about twenty more at his feet in a little herd of raised talons. He swings the shotgun as a club, useless to shoot the damn thing. We’re not gonna be able to hold them off like this, we need something close-range, like a sword or--

Or that display item above Dean’s head.

I vault up from a crouch, using Dean’s shoulder as a support to scramble onto the shelves. He twists to look up and one of the fucking lizards does a leap that mirrors my own onto the opposing shelf, then launches at Dean.

It rips a whole strip of skin from the corner of his eyes to his mouth. Dean howls, lips painted harlot-red with his own blood.

Whatever fear or panic that’s left inside me crystallizes. I snatch the chainsaw down from its resting place and yank the cord. Its small engine cranks and then roars: they probably keep this puppy set aside for demonstration-days and showing off.

It’s a _vibrating_ phallic object, and it’s mine now. I hop down from the shelves and land with a smack on the aisle floor, right in the herd’s center. “Awright, bitches! _Who wants some?_ ”

They dart and scatter just like the stones had when I smashed them; I swing the chainsaw two-handed at one and feel a surge of pure, snarling, caveman vindication when it squeals high in pain. The aisle’s narrow enough to force a bottle-neck in their numbers and I surge forward on bent knees, barely able to see in the dancing beam of Dean’s flashlight.

My hands jump and jerk on the chainsaw as it connects again and again, long swipes from side to side, half-blind but not really needing to aim. One makes a desperate leap for my head; the shotgun butt whistles past me and smacks it away like a baseball. Balls of steel to be swinging that hard, that close to my head, but that’s trust for you.

It’s something else entirely when I get to the end of the aisle and see a much larger shape flying at me. A raptor, come to join its smaller cousins.

I drop flat instantly, chainsaw flung to the side. It isn’t a response to Dean’s voice: can’t hear too well through the earmuffs and still-going siren even if he saw it first and yelled at me. There’s no signal between us, my back’s to him and he doesn’t grab me. I just drop to the floor, right underneath the raptor’s on-rushing claws.

Dean twirls the shotgun in midair, the fucking cowboy, and shoots one-handed over me. The kick snaps his wrist back and he grimaces in pain; it does the job, though. I roll to avoid a mess of claws and strange-smelling flesh that hits the floor, revealing up-close the contours of its skull, the cruel lines and hard, pebbly skin. It taps straight back into that animal part of my own brain and freezes up my muscles for a second, makes my mouth go dry.

Another shot goes off and fuck, there are more. I get my unsteady limbs back in place and haul upright. Dean stands tall in front of a rack of potted plants, his flashlight jammed in his mouth, the shotgun spitting light and death. His arms work like pistons, reloading and shooting.

The two remaining raptors get the point and dodge down the aisles out of range; Dean spares a quick glance in my direction. It’s just a brief flash of eyes in the dark, but I know he’s trying to gauge how freaked out I am. That gets me going right quick: he’s clearly got the raptors in hand, but plenty of the smaller dinosaurs skitter along our feet. The chainsaw’s sputtered out and I yank it back to action.

I get through the next bit on a haze of pure adrenaline, fear clamped way down inside in a space where I can still use it without freezing up. The alarm goes on and on and who knows how many dinosaurs are actually out there: maybe the kid wished that dinosaurs _everywhere_ would come back to life and the world’s been overrun. The thought makes my lip curl and I fling myself forward at the little ones, chainsawing through them all. Their blood splatters on me, tingling with heat and just a bit of sting, like they’ve got something on the inside that just doesn’t interact well with human bodies.

We work our way through the store to the front and the little lizards are all leaping through the front window, scampering away fast across the parking lot. I think about them getting to another kid somewhere out there, and leap after them.

I’ve still got the earmuffs on; I don’t hear Dean’s shout or the low, rattling growl that rises and rises.

I don’t hear it until the growl rises to the decibel that penetrates earmuffs and bones alike, shaking my skin with its force.

I don’t remember freezing up completely. Just looking up and looking up past the crooked legs to the muscular, elephant-like thighs, to the small arms ridiculously disproportionate to the rest, to the ridges above its beady black eyes and the _mouth_ the fucking _maw_ that opens up, a whole graveyard full of little bits of people stuck between its teeth. The stink of their rotting remains washes over me as it roars and there isn’t anything else, just _it_ , just the rows and rows of teeth, the hugeness of its body, six times my height, the pure animal _cruelty_ in it…

The fact that I _did_ freeze up is what saves me; Dean tells me later that its eyesight is based on movement, another detail from those damned movies (thank you, Spielberg). It can hear just fine, though, and probably wondered first what this whooping siren noise was about, then got curious about the buzzing chainsaw in my hand. Curious, cautious, and that’s another thing that saved my life.

Dean says that he grabbed the chainsaw away from me and threw it across the parking lot; the T-rex overcame its caution and lunged after it. I don’t remember that.

-o-

The next thing I _do_ remember is sitting on packed earth that’s damp enough to soak through my jeans and underwear. My ass is freezing but I can’t move… don’t know why at first, but I must be talking because Dean is answering me. “We’re not going to die,” he says low and steady beside me. “No, no, we’re not. No, it’s not gonna eat us. It can’t find us down here.”

I think for a moment that we’re still in the hardware store: there’s a siren going off, but after a moment I realize that it’s a different one, a long wail instead of the alarm’s whoop. We must be in some kind of basement--I can see dim florescent light through a window but we have to be pretty far away from the sun for my ass to feel this cold in June. Other people sit around me, huddled in groups; someone’s crying and someone else sounds like they’re babbling.

It’s a Godawful, wrenching moment when I realize that the babbling person is _me_.

The taste of blood sings along my taste buds and I realize that I snapped my mouth shut so hard that I’ve bitten into a corner of my tongue. In the sudden absence of my verbal freakout, Dean grabs at my shoulder, shaking me hard. “Dude,” I croak, “gimme a minute.”

He lets go and backs up to sit by the door. Whenever _Dean_ panics, he needs to be grabbed; doesn’t tolerate it any other time, but when something gives him a solid freakout, I’ve got to get him as close as possible. Naturally, I’m just opposite… if I spaz, get the fuck away or bullets will start flying.

I hadn’t realized that he’d figured that out about me, but I don’t always give Dean enough credit.

Another breath of cold air in my lungs tastes like earth and dust. There are about a dozen other people in the basement with us, all civilians; a mother holds her two kids close, a bleary-eyed guy in his sixties clutches a steak knife and looks as dangerous as a kitten.

Jesus. Get it together. “How’d we get here?” I blurt, then almost bite my tongue again to retract the words. Fuck. I just fucking _froze up_.

“We’re about a block from the hardware store,” Dean reports, his eyes on my face. “Things look quiet out there right now. I had to leave the car.”

I register the full enormity of that and nod. I’m shaking pretty badly and my limbs feel like they’re attached with puppet strings. Okay. I’m gonna have to put my fist through something later, preferably my own head. Jesus. I roll over onto my knees and take stock: my Glock still rests against the small of my back; besides some bumps and bruises, I feel okay. Dean had to have carried me here and that set off a whole new level of self-recrimination. I grit my teeth and haul upright, staggering a bit on stiff legs.

Dean rises with me, gaze briefly leaving my face to do a circuit of the room and recheck the window. “Haven’t seen the T-rex, but a couple of the smaller variety went by earlier. Heard some shots, so at least there’s someone still out there with balls.”

He could’ve--should’ve--gone back out saving people, or at least getting his car back, but he chose to stay with my shocked-out ass. I clear my throat and my voice comes out much steadier this time. “Bully for them. What’s the plan?”

“It’ll be dawn in about an hour. I’m thinking these things have much better night vision than us, so we chill until the playing field levels. Then we get the hell out there and see exactly how deep this shit is. They’ll probably stick close to food supplies, so there Bessie the Cow. I’d guess that our friend James and his friends have already made some phone calls, so hopefully we’ll be gettin’ some help. I hope they bring a tank. A tank would be _awesome_.” He glances back at me, talking to fill the silence but running out of things to say. His lips purse, then he asks. “You here?”

It’s said with complete gentleness, yet still feels like a slap to the face. Jesus, I just fucking _froze_ , what is the _matter_ with me? Fuck. “It’ll take them a while to work through all the cow farms,” I reply hoarsely. “Then they’ll start spreading outward.” _If they haven’t already. If the world isn’t already one big Jurassic playground_. “We need to get to a television.”

He follows that thought and nods, but does not relent. “Are you here?”

I resist the urge to snarl with a growing, white-hot anger that’s completely directed at myself. “Yes.”

He makes absolutely no other comment, takes me at my word, bless him. “They didn’t go out with the necklace, so I guess we gotta do it the old-fashioned way.” In the dim light, his teeth flash. “Good thing I love the old-fashioned way.”

“You two are going back _out there_?” I think that’s the mother talking, but in the dark I can’t be too sure.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean replies smartly. “Don’t worry ‘bout us, we’re professional dinosaur hunters.”

I find his shoulder and punch it lightly; he smirks in response. My gut clenches up tight at the thought of going out there among the freaky clawed predators and I’m far from rock-solid right now; but Dean’s getting me there.

“Come dawn,” he says, “let’s bag ourselves a T-rex.”

If I’ve ever loved anyone else more than this cowboy idiot with his idiot grin and idiot recklessness, it’d have to be Martha. There ain’t no one else.

 

  
Chapter 25: The Dinosaur Chronicles – Part 3

When the sky lightens we emerge from the storm doors that hid us for the last hour. The first thing I notice, beside the still-wailing siren that echoes through the streets, is the four inch, shallow gash on Dean’s face. “Jesus,” I snap, gripping his jaw and turning it towards the dawn light. “You _lookin_ ’ for a scar?” He’s got a red bandana slung over the side of his face like a pirate and I peel it back slowly, wincing at the same time he does.

“Chicks dig scars.”

I smile to myself grimly, remembering. “This is true.”

Ain’t much I can do for him or his face in our present position, so we take off down the street, moving tandem between the mailboxes and trees. I can’t help but glance upward into the branches, wondering what’s gonna drop down on top of me. It’s just a block back to the hardware store, and I purposefully avoid the cracks and potholes left behind by that thing-- _T-rex, it was a T-rex, face it, Watson_.

The Impala’s where we left it, thankfully, and no cracks or potholes in her to speak of. Dean pets along one of her sides just to be sure, murmuring; I don’t bat an eyelash. The Iron Maiden and I have long since had a meeting of the minds, the primary connection being our joint interest in the preservation of one Dean Winchester; wouldn’t matter if the poor girl had half her joints ripped off, and the same goes for me. Over Dean’s protests, I get the first aid kit out and pour some butterfly stitches down the gash. It’s not deep but it’s had plenty of time open to the air and God knows what’s gotten inside of it. Dean whines when I pour iodine on and actually _kicks_ me, the jerk. I kick back. “Knock it off, dickhead.”

Something moves in our peripheral vision and we both jerk instinctively, hands going for weapons. In the morning light, the raptor is hard to make out: its fast, freaky-deaky animal movements give it away more than anything else. It’s way over on the other side of the parking lot, running from around the corner of the hardware store across to the street beyond.

Neither of us takes a shot: I’m too busy measuring panic, judging my reaction, and Dean’s too busy fisting his hand in the back of my shirt. The raptor dashes across the yellow parking lot lines without turning its head towards us; we stay hunched against the Impala’s side until it passes.

“ _Fuck_ ,” I murmur. Dean hasn’t let go of me and he must be a little bit freaked out himself to drag me in that close. Me panicked equals a mile-radius around; Dean panicked equals up close and personal. That certainly helps make me feel like less of a dick, even after Dean remembers himself and lets me go.

“Okay,” he hisses between his teeth, raising fingers to the gash; I bat them away. “We gotta nail these sonsabitches before people start poking their stupid heads out.”

The earthquake siren isn’t loud, but it’s persistent. I imagine people came to their doorways, listening; some must have seen something out there in the dark that gave them a freakout solid enough to shut their doors and drag their kids into back rooms; others would have called 911 and been told to stay the _fuck_ inside by James and his friends. Which, hopefully, leaves me and Dean out here on our own, at least until Jimmy-Boy can invent some story that the National Guard will buy enough to send out Dean’s beloved tanks.

There’s no sign of the T-rex.

-o-

There _are_ , however, plenty of our friends the raptors and the smaller ones--“compys,” Dean calls them. Boy couldn’t tell you the name of our Secretary of State, but damn if he doesn’t remember every single bit of movie trivia _ever_.

“Why couldn’t they have been nice, slow planteaters?” I moan. “I mean, seriously.”

“No 9-year-old boy is gonna wish for a brontosaurus, Kimmy. It’s all meateaters and mandibles, those were the _cool_ ones.” Dean’s tied the blood-stained bandana around his head and sits in the passenger seat with two shotguns in hand like a wild-eyed Rambo gunslinger; his face has swollen a bit and probably hurts like Hell. He looks 7 stones short of a barrow and pretty much like the last motherfucker you want to mess with this morning.

I glance at the shotguns. “Boys with toys.”

His lips spread into a grim smile that changes to a wince when it disrupts the cut on his face. “Something like that.”

I drive us around and around through the streets, winding outward from the heart of town; on the corner of Triceratops Avenue (oh, Christ) we encounter some action: a small expedition of humans has ventured out from their nests of security to test the unknown open sky. It isn’t going well: two down and the others have nothing better than baseball bats and garden rakes to fend off the three raptors.

Dean cocks the shotguns and says, “Don’t slow down.” Then he scrambles out the side of the car to sit in the window, gun extended over the Impala’s roof. The shots echo loud through the metal just above my head; I pin one ear against a shoulder, wincing, and focus on keeping the car above thirty.

Something else clatters against the roof, thumps, and the wheel jerks under my hands. I grip it, shouting up to Dean, who bellows, “ _Brakes_!”

I hit them hard, reaching out with one hand to grab his knees and steady him. One of his hands clamps down on the window’s edge for the same reason; he flails and tips, but doesn’t fall.

A raptor, made airborne by inertia and the sudden re-direction of its ride, flies over the windshield, bounces heavily across the hood, and rolls to the ground in front of our bumper, twitching. I grip Dean harder and switch pedals. The car guns, then bounces wildly as its tires pass over the hefty lump of dinosaur.

Having summited and descended our Mt. Raptor, I let Dean go and poke my head out the window to look back. The raptor lies in the street, still; behind it, the human squad gather their wounded and scramble for shelter. Dean slides back in through the window and lands beside me. “How long do you figure before somebody gets their asses out here?”

I send the Impala in motion again on our patrol. “Depends on who they managed to raise and how they went about asking. I doubt they’d get much support for stories about dinosaurs… hopefully they called in a terrorist attack or something. That’d scramble the Guard, at least. Cops would get here faster, but they wouldn’t have guns big enough for this shit. _Raptor_.”

The Impala doesn’t turn on a dime, but it’s had plenty of experience with handbrake turns: I whip the baby’s rear end around to give Dean a clean shot at the Raptor approaching from our front.

There’s still no sign of the T-rex.

-o-

There’s a kiddie park on Teradactyl Terrace, and four kiddies and two mothers cling to the jungle gym’s highest point, screaming. Below them leaps a herd of about twelve compys, snapping upward like so many fanged baby birds.

Turns out axes work just as well as chainsaws. One of the mothers has a nasty bite on her leg: I bandage it up while Dean gathers the kids to him, soothing and offering as much reassurance as he can while holding a shotgun in one hand and an axe in the other. After a quick round of first aid, we pile everyone into the Impala’s back seat and escort them home.

At the top of Ceratosaurus Circle, we catch a glimpse of the highway: a long string of flashing lights accompanied by the simple dull green of military Humvees. “Thank God,” I grunt, slowing the Impala to a crawl. “Took ‘em long enough.”

“No tank.” Dean cranes his neck and actually looks a little disappointed.

I poke his arm. “Cheer up. They’ve probably got grenades.”

There’s _still_ no sign of the T-rex.

-o-

With the cavalry pouring in, Dean and I beat tracks out of town, heading west; sooner or later someone’s going to ask about the two crazies in the Impala, and for all that Dean’s got a new identity, we don’t want someone recognizing him as that goddamned dead serial killer in St. Louis.

It’s barely 5 miles to the border and we roll the windows down when we cross, letting in sweet Utah air made warm by a summer dawn. I turn my head to say something to Dean and my eyes go past him. I think, _Maybe, maybe if I don’t say anything he won’t see it_.

The dumb hero in me won’t quite let it be, though, and I slow the Impala to a stop on the side of the highway. Dean glances over, his eyes widen, and then he follows the jerk of my chin.

The T-rex is about two miles away from us, just a little speck of giant killer lizard at this distance. Looks to be some kind of sizable ranch; apparently these things all came _hungry_ into their sudden, magical existence.

For a long, quiet moment, we sit in contemplation.

“Whaddya think?” I finally ask Dean.

He rubs his lips, tapping them. “There’s a grain silo out there.”

I put the car in gear and back it up until the gravel driveway comes into view again. “And a shitload of cows, probably. Maybe dinosaurs get sleepy after they eat.” Gravel crunches quietly under the tires; I drive slow, not out of fear--no, not out of _fear_ , goddammit--but to keep our approach as quiet as possible. And to give Dean time to figure this out, ‘cause I’ve got _no clue_.

The house looks to be the palatial abode of a big-name rancher; there’s nothing else for miles, but if it keeps going west that’ll put it squarely in Provo or SLC.

The giant lizard in question is, indeed, asleep, settled on its haunches in the midst of blood-splattered earth. The few remaining bovine snacks have fled its presence to the far end of the inner paddock; they bunch together closely, all trying to avoid being the odd cow out of the herd, their eyes wide and rolling with panic.

“They have a boat,” Dean says in my ear. “You gonna be okay?”

“Peachy,” I reply through gritted teeth. “Dude, how the _fuck_ are you so calm about this?”

Shotguns aren’t gonna do us much good and Dean lays his on the car’s floor before answering. “After you’ve fought a demon, sweetheart, everything else seems blasé.”

“Well then, can you promise we’ll never fight a demon?”

His smile turns pained and he looks out the window at our lizard quarry. “I hope to Hell not, Kimmy.”

I take a deep breath, release it hard through my lips. “So what’s the plan?”

The grin Dean sends me makes my heart sink even further. “You remember that scene in _Jaws_?”

-o-

The rancher’s boat is a fancy big number, probably used for scuba-diving and penis envy on Lake Powell. Dean sorts through its contents quick and efficient while I back the Impala up to the silo and retrieve about 1000 feet of 3/16” steel cable, wound tight on its winch. Either the ranchers aren’t home or they’re staying firmly inside, ‘cause we get no help or interference from the main house.

Dean makes a pained noise when we bolt the winch to the floor of the Impala, just behind the front seat. I sit in the back and make an even more pained noise when he lays out the full plan for me. “Oh, _fuck_ , Dean,” I groan.

“Just don’t miss,” he replies sternly. “If you miss, we’re fucked.”

“ _That’s_ not the part that worries me!” I snap in a whisper, glancing out the Impala’s windows at the still-snoozing T-rex. “I’m much more freaked by the part where you walk the fuck up and _shake hands_ with the fucking thing!”

“Then don’t miss,” Dean says. And grins. “They’re gonna write songs about this, Kimmy.”

I stare at him, then bow my forehead against the front seat, helpless with silent laughter. “You fucking idiot. I love you so much.”

“Think about it!” Dean exclaims as he starts up the car, his hand patting my hair. “’The Ballad of Dean and his Dyke.’”

“Hey, fuck you. ‘Kim and her Idiot.’”

He squints and purses his lips. “Mine has alliteration. You ready?”

I check both the guns and steel my stomach. “As I’ll ever be.”

The Impala’s engine roars.

The T-rex doesn’t even twitch as we careen onto the paddock. It doesn’t wake up at all, drooped down on its haunches with its cutesy little forearms of death hanging limp, while we roar closer.

It stays asleep right up until I lean out of the window and shoot it in the ass with a boat harpoon.

 _That_ gets it going. It lurches and roars, not at full blast but a still-impressive rumble through its teeth. The harpoon bobs but stays put as the T-rex rises, so I let the harpoon gun fall outside and scramble for the other side of the Impala’s back seat; not a moment too soon, ‘cause the steel cable goes whip-taut. Dean takes us under the T-rex’s nose and the winch starts spinning at my feet, releasing the cable at increasing speeds as Dean arches our path to the left in a wide circle around the roaring lizard.

I grit my teeth and heft myself up into the Impala’s window, much like Dean’s seat from this morning. Dust from the tires spirals up into the air, but through it I can see the T-rex’s ugly, fearsome head turn in our direction. If it follows us, Dean won’t be able to get around the other side; it doesn’t look like it can move very fast, but we’re at tight quarters already.

I level a handgun and start firing. Won’t do much against something that size, more like bee stings… but you don’t necessarily want to run towards a bee nest. My guess turns out to be right: it roars and spins away, not at all inclined to chase after this source of annoyance so soon after…

“ _Kim_!” Dean screams.

I look up in time to see the tail swinging around towards us and maybe it’s got _another_ way it wants to deal with us. There’s no time to get back inside and take cover on the floor, so I drop the gun, grab on to either side of the window with both hands, and flatten my body out.

The car shudders hard as the tail makes contact and I hear glass shatter. My right hand loses its grip and I flail, sliding to hang out of the car with my head dangerously close to the ground. The lower half of my body seesaws up into the air, toes connecting with the inside of the Impala’s damaged roof.

A hand closes around my ankle. Dean isn’t strong enough to yank me back in one-handed, stretched out as he is to reach me, but he sure as shit isn’t letting go, either. I use every inch of stomach muscle to hoist myself upward and manage to grab the door handle. It’s a matter of sheer fucking brute strength, no technique or grace to it, but with Dean stabilizing me, I get back inside.

The moment my ass hits the back seat Dean releases my ankle and swerves hard to the left. The windshield’s cracked but I can still see the T-rex’s gaping jaws just in front of us.

Dean avoids those rows of teeth by inches, taking us under the bulk of its body. Directly to our left are its legs and I catch sight of the harpoon as we pass. _One round_.

There’s dust everywhere now, and the T-rex has stopped coming after us to struggle with its feet, pulling at the cable wrapped there. The Impala jerks and drags with its movements; the car bed at my feet groans under the strain, and I’m pretty sure that I see it move upward just a hair. The bolts hold, though.

The sniper rifle’s fallen off the seat onto the floor, barrel tilted dangerously close to the winch. I lunge down and pick it up and my stomach freezes.

The sighting glass has been smashed.

I shout to Dean but he doesn’t hear, too focused on getting us around the T-rex again, like a NASCAR driver circling the in-field. The windshield’s barely holding together and the roof is half-caved in so Dean leans out of the window to steer. I reach forward to grab him just as the tail passes close overhead again and he yells, yanking at the wheel and jerking away from my grip. _Fuck_.

Out of the left window I see the harpoon. _Two rounds_.

I grit my teeth and start praying. There’s another sighting glass in the trunk and if we’ve got time, if we’ve got time, maybe…

The harpoon goes past again. _Three rounds_ , and then the T-rex is roaring and tipping, falling down _towards us_ , for Christ’s fucking sake. I scream and Dean guns the engine, flinging us out from under the 7 tons of plummeting lizard. It misses us by inches, smashing to the ground behind us with a boom that vibrates my bones.

Dean drives us about thirty feet away, then squeals to a stop, popping out of the car instantly; I scrabble for the door handle and get tangled up with the sniper rifle. Eventually I get it open with a kick and shout, “Dean, wait!”

He’s already got the trunk open, arms flexing as he lifts the air tank that he pilfered from the boat’s scuba-diving supplies. “We got one shot, Kimmy, come _on_ , we gotta do this _now_ …”

I shove the broken sight in his face. “It’s shattered, Dean, I got no way to sight!”

Dean freezes, his eyes on the destroyed instrument. Behind us, the fallen T-rex roars and lurches, tail flopping against the ground and kicking up a shitload of dust. It can’t move its legs with the cable wrapped around them, but it’ll get the bonds loose before long.

Dean’s eyes meet mine. “You gotta make the shot, Kim.”

I want to scream, hit him, throw him in the car and let the goddamned cattle ranchers fend for their own fucking selves. What I do instead is set my jaw and set the rifle to the crook of my shoulder.

Dean nods once and hefts the tank up onto his own shoulder, taking off at a slow trot straight for the T-rex.

It’s rolled upright, tucking its legs under in an effort to stand. It looks up when Dean approaches, roaring for all it’s worth, roaring to split the air in two.

Dean doesn’t slow down.

I kneel beside the Impala, one elbow propped on the trunk; I squint down the rifle’s length. Praying.

Dean does a quick stutter-step, and then _launches_ the air tank straight into the T-rex’s wide-open mouth like a discus.

And after all that, after my heart pounding like a drum in my palms, I don’t even get a chance to take the shot. The T-rex closes its mouth reflexively and the pressurized air tank goes _FOOM_.

Later, much later, I read that a Tyrannosaurus Rex has the strongest bite of almost any animal in history, estimated at about 3,000 pounds in force.

At the time, I threw down the rifle and ran after Dean, screaming his name. Little bits of T-rex fly in every direction, raining down on my head; I throw an arm up over my head and trip over pieces of bone, flesh, and pebbly skin.

Then I trip over Dean and fall square on my face. He lies on his side, curled up; when I grab him and roll him over, his eyes rove around, blinking. There’s too much T-rex all over to tell if he’s hurt, so I grab him under both armpits and pull him away from the dinosaur’s body.

After about ten feet Dean grunts. “Kim.”

I stop and ease him down, circle to drop into a crouch across his legs. “You okay? Hey, c’mon, look at me dude, you okay?”

He drags his eyes open and winces, raising a hand to his forehead. “Fuck. My head hurts.”

“Anything else?”

Dean pauses, shifting and testing out his body. “Don’t think so,” he reports at last. I breathe. A mild concussion then, from the force of the blast. Hopefully he hasn’t ruptured an eardrum; I check both, but neither ear seems to be bleeding. With a little help, he gets to his feet, leaning on me.

Together we stare at the headless T-rex body.

“Holy shit.”

“Holy _fucking_ shit.”

We both start laughing. Whooping, loud, breathless laughter that leaves us staggering, jubilant, making rude gestures at the dino corpse. We take pictures with that camera that I bought back in Houston, grab a gun each and set the camera’s timer, then run out and pose just in front of the T-rex, shotguns balanced on our hips, sunglasses on, middle fingers raised.

“Dude,” Dean chokes after the camera clicks. “We should send those out as Christmas cards.”

We do, at least to Martha’s family. I’m pretty sure that at some point I see one addressed to Dean’s dad, but I don’t know if it ever got sent.

-o-

I drive north to Wyoming, windows rolled down and Dean petting the dashboard, crooning apologies to his poor beautiful, banged-up car. When we pull over at a rest stop to clean dinosaur guts off in the stinking bathrooms, I find a raptor claw imbedded in the Impala’s roof.

Dean wraps it with a strap of leather and hangs it from the rearview mirror. I call him a dick and we both laugh.

So I have no idea at _all_ why, just ten minutes later, I burst into tears in the middle of the convenience store candy section. Except that I know exactly why, as euphoria finally loosens up all the panic and fear that I’ve kept tramped down all day.

Dean’s absolutely horror-stricken, practically sprints down an aisle to fold himself around me, murmuring and questioning.

I jab a finger at him, hiccupping between my sobs. “Shut up! I have… I have the _right_ to c-cry about this, dammit! This whole day was f- _fucked up_.”

One of his hands holds the side of my head and the other rubs between my shoulder blades, soothing. “Okay,” he murmurs, rocking me like a child.

I close my eyes and lean against him. “God, that poor kid.”

His movements still. I sigh and wrap arms around his waist.

When we get back to the car he starts to take the raptor’s claw down from its place. I stop him, and we leave it to hang there for an entirely different reason.

 

Chapter 26: Fathers and Sons

So it’s September, about three months after the whole adventure in Dinosaur. We’re still feeling the after-effects of that particular throwdown: Dean takes me to a couple of joints where hunters hang out and we always have someone walk up to our table to ask about ‘that business in Colorado’ with varying degrees of skepticism and interest.

Whenever we hit up those kindsa places, I take the raptor claw down from its place on the rearview mirror and wear it under my shirt. Silently lifting it from under its hiding place saves us all a whole lotta conversation.

News moves: in Cheyenne my phone rings. I check the ID and pause. Dean’s in the car right next to me, ain’t no way this’ll be private; I answer it anyway. “Hi, John.”

Dean’s head turns towards me. I lean back in my seat and take a swig from my 7-Up.

“ _I heard about that, ah, business in Colorado. I’m gonna track you both down and kill you_.”

I pull the phone away from my chin and raise my eyebrows at Dean. “It’s your dad. He’s called to threaten our lives.” Dean blinks, body froze up, not at all sure what to do. I return to the phone. “What’s got your panties in a bunch, old man?”

“ _One of the kids in the shop had a copy of the video download thing. I saw what you bastards did to the Impala. I’m comin’ for you._ ”

He hangs up. I tuck the phone away and slide on my sunglasses. Dean eyes me suspiciously. “Best start driving, brother,” I tell him. “Sounds like Daddy’s pissed that we wrecked the ‘Vette.”

-o-

In Memphis I find a redhead named Lucy and we dance for hours, one of my arms hooked over her shoulder to dangle a glass of whiskey against her back with loose fingers. Every time the cold glass connects with her back, she hisses and moves against me. Dean sits in the corner and broods. I give him space, plenty of it, _tons_ of space. I’m in the back room tying Lucy’s _hands_ to a grate with her own _shirt_ , I’m giving him so much space. ‘Cause I’m _just_ that considerate.

When I come back and plop down across from him, he spares me a quick glance. “What’re you, sick? You’re _never_ in and out in five.”

The fact that he knows my sexual habits down to the minute should be squicky, yet totally isn’t. “That was just round 1. She’s still tied up back there; I’ll go back in a bit.”

He stares. “You _left_ her tied up?”

I grin and raise my glass of whiskey. He scoffs and shakes his head. “You get away with so much more shit than I do.”

“Eh, you can pee out of a moving vehicle.”

He raises his glass. “And _have_.”

“Good times.”

We lapse into easy silence. That’s taken a good long while to cultivate: Dean’s kind of a talker, can’t keep still for too long. He’s one of those guys that has to keep physically moving, talking, doing something, so that silence can’t get a word in edgewise.

The fact that he doesn’t feel that antsy need right _now_ … I sketch a glance at his face. He looks thoughtful, turning something over, but not tense.

All the encouragement I need: I declare open season and lean forward. “We gonna talk about the thing with your dad?”

His eyes slide over to me; the thing in his head rotates a few more times. “You called him before?”

“Only once. He’s called me a total of nine times, not counting today. I tell him that you’re okay, I’m okay, we’re okay, and occasionally shoot the shit about what you and I are hunting. You remember that golem back in New Hampshire?”

He makes the connection fast. “The one that you suddenly knew exactly how to take care of?”

“John was the one who told me to look for the inscription under the tongue.”

Another pause, this one slightly less companionable. Dean stares into the middle distance, his lips pursed lightly. “And does he, ah.” He struggles a bit. “He’s doing okay?”

I kick my feet up on the bench, my back to the wall. “Sounds like it.” I pause and measure this out. “’pparently, he and Sam haven’t been on the best of terms lately.”

That gets all of his attention; he doesn’t even _try_ to feign disregard. “Why?”

“Don’t know exactly, but I don’t think John’s been as good as I have about not asking questions.”

Our eyes meet and hold, then part. _Never have, never will_.

I take a last swig of whiskey, then pour myself another shot from our appointed bottle. “Think I’m gonna go pour this over Ms. Lucy. Any moral objections from the peanut gallery?”

Dean smiles over the lip of his glass, admiration and envy.

-o-

The first time John called me was a full day after the Phoenix incident. It was a short conversation.

“Yeah.”

“ _He alive_?”

“Yeah. Sam?”

“ _Banged up, took him to a hospital. Nothing serious_.” He paused and the silence rang with his confusion, desperation, agony.

I sucked my gut in and made my voice hard. Gotta be cruel to be kind. “Don’t call again, John. I’ll call you, let you know when it’s okay.”

-o-

We’re somewhere in West Virginia tracking a serial wife-beater before Dean actually makes a move, and this one’s a bit more difficult for him. We’re staked outside the house of the one girlfriend who wouldn’t turn on the skip; he hasn’t beaten her up enough to trigger her slow survival instincts. I’m on point and I think Dean’s asleep until he suddenly blurts, “Do you have my dad’s number?”

I glance over, startled; he’s back in contemplation of the middle distance. Guess that’s where he gets all his answers. “I don’t have his number anymore,” he grunts after a moment, as if he needs the qualifier.

“Yeah,” I murmur back, flipping open my cell and squinting against the glow.

He doesn’t call until the next morning, stepping outside our hotel room for a bit of privacy. Still, I catch a couple of _so, yeahs_ and _uh-huhs,_ characteristic of a conversation between two guys who desperately want to talk to each other but don’t know how.

Dean’s face when he comes back in is a bit drawn, but steady. “He’s gonna fly into Charleston.”

-o-

The only time I ever called John was in the dead space between Christmas and New Year’s, my first holiday season with Dean. He was out buying us cheap liquor; wanted to watch the ball drop on TV.

“ _Hello?_ ” There was noise in the background, drilling and machines.

“John. It’s Kim Watson.”

“ _Oh, shit. Hold on_.” Movement, cloth rubbing together, then a door shut and the sound died down. “ _Where is he? Is he okay?_ ”

“Easy, easy. We’re in Salt Lake City, we’re fine. Well, except for my fucking Spock ear.”

“ _Your what?_ ”

“A skip went after my ear with a samurai sword.”

A brief pause. “ _Damn._ ” There was laughter in his voice, the fucker. It’s genetic.

-o-

Dean drives to the airport, his hands tight on the wheel. There isn’t any question as to whether I should come or not.

John’s outside the terminal, an old Army bag slung over his shoulder; Dean slows the car to a growling crawl and the brakes whine long and quiet as we pull to a stop. John tosses off the bag and moves around to the front of the car. He bends down and examines the fenders critically, flicks a finger against the hood.

He moves around to Dean’s side; Dean, who had his door halfway open and one boot out, retracts both slowly, shuts the door with a thunk and twists in his seat, watching. John continues in his careful inspection, down the driver’s side, gently kicking the tires, rubbing a hand across the hot roof.

Yup. It’s genetic.

After he safely passes my window, I pop the handle and step out to lean with one arm slung over the door and the other elbow propped against the roof. “Hey, old man.”

“Hey, girlie,” John grunts back. He shoots one last concerned look at the car then circles it again to stand at the side of his oldest son.

Dean has finally clambered out; tense like fine steel and skittish as a green horse. John curls a hand carefully around the back of his son’s neck, bent to look in Dean’s eyes.

John says slowly, “You blew up a _T-rex_?”

Dean blinks; I laugh, put my head back in the sunlight. John looks across to me and the laughter catches him, too, because he whoops. “You _blew up_ a _T-rex_?”

Dean looks around us. “Dad, keep your voice down…”

John’s _gone_ , laughing so hard he’s red, doubled over and barely holding himself up with a hand against the car. Dean stares at him wide-eyed, looks to me for help. I shake my head and go to pick up the old coot’s bag. We somehow get both bag and man in the back seat, where John proceeds to roar with laughter for another five minutes.

-o-

The fourth time John called me, he asked, “Why him? Why Dean?”

I hung up. The fifth time he called, 2 minutes later, he was apologizing before I even said hello. “It’s not that. It’s not… I know he’s a good man and he’s-- _worth_ it. Of course I know,” and his voice turned rough, “he’s my son. I just…”

I sighed. “Why did I decide that he was the slightly deranged, adrenaline-addicted chauvinistic pig for me?”

“Yeah.”

I watched Dean approach from across the parking lot; he’d been gone for about half an hour on a coffee run and judging from the ruffled state of his hair and the smirk on his face, that run had taken him directly between the legs of the sweet, petite little farmgirl behind the counter.

“Because,” I told John patiently, “ _I’m_ a slightly deranged, adrenaline-addicted chauvinistic pig.”

-o-

We head to the Rendezvous, the kinda underground blues bar you could only find if you were staggering drunk down back alleys and picking doors at random. It’s the anniversary of Johnny Cash’s death and they’ve got a whole set of his best lined up; I’m prone to the old-age Cash, when his baritone got scratchy like a record. John likes the earlier songs, tied to memory like the inverted, prettier version of scars.

Dean gets a pitcher and looks back and forth between us, unsure and a little resentful. John tries for neutral ground. “So besides saving the world from dinos, whattya been up to?”

We try to maintain the neutrality: for the next hour, the table remains a fucking Switzerland, all sharp edges smoothed down and blunt instruments tucked away. It ain’t exactly comfortable, but it gets easier when John and Dean start telling me their own hunting stories. The fables must all come from the stretch of two years that Sam was at college, ‘cause he doesn’t put in a single appearance.

Dean drinks beer; John drinks water.

-o-

The seventh time John called me he broke down crying. Don’t you tell a goddamned soul.

I sat for a while on the curb outside our hotel while John pulled himself back together. He could do this shit with me, the same way you can tell your whole life story to a stranger on the plane, with more honesty than you ever would to a friend.

A swarm of mayflies danced around the streetlight above me; I watched them and listened to John’s uneven breathing, the faint noises of pain that he made in the back of his throat when it all just became _too much_. He’d been see-sawing between his sons for years, accepted by one and pushed away by the other, always off-balance. It was Sam’s turn now; but after Phoenix and years of silence, John was pretty sure that the pendulum had finally run out and he’d be left hanging between until the life choked out of him.

I rubbed a pair of grubby fingers into my eyes. “John? I’ll do what I can.”

-o-

We timed it pretty well, John and I: his lease is up at the end of the month, and right away he moves back to Kansas. Center of the country, a perfect focal point for moons in eternal orbit. He settles in the eastern part of the state, almost due north of Amarillo and Josephine’s house. That had to have been deliberate on his part, though _how_ deliberate we didn’t find out until later.

There’s no talk of Sam, or what John told him to explain the move. I spare a moment to think of the youngest Winchester, walled up inside his own cave.

 _Can’t save ‘em all, Kimmy._ Funny how my internal voice sounds like Martha.

Things don’t always go smooth on our end, of course: Dean and I spend a week in town, sleeping on the bare wood floors of the John’s new house and helping him move. It’s a small place, one of those WWII-era homes that the Army built for soldiers’ families. Square and unimaginative, but orderly. I can see immediately how it would appeal to John.

We spend most of our time lugging his stuff into the house and unpacking it; there’s plenty of opportunity for John to get Dean alone and he does. After three days Dean comes to me with a tight, strained face. “Dad definitely asked Sam a lot of questions he shouldn’t have.”

It’s a roundabout way of asking for help. Dean certainly doesn’t know how to push away his father’s need to know without being cruel about it; that was his brother’s problem, too. You can’t ask for blind faith when you don’t have any yourself.

John, though, he’s got some believer in him and I’ve got more than enough for all three of us. I get him in a corner and he scowls. “I just-I want to _know_.”

“Don’t we all,” I tell him roughly. The only way out is through. Take a leap and see if there’s ground or sky in the dark; it’s the choice I made with Dean, the same one I make every day.

John may not like it, but in the end he can’t stand to lose what he probably views as his last shot with Dean. All questionings cease.

John gets a job in a small garage, doesn’t make much but has enough saved away to last him awhile. Dean and I both know better than to offer him money. There’s a big military base nearby and the town’s thick with VA centers, caretakers, and vets; they welcome John gladly, grateful for a new storyteller to join them as they sit together in sidewalk lawn chairs outside their square, plain homes.

I doubt it’s how John saw his waning years, but he’s too old and sore to hunt. Besides, he’s already found what he needed in the dark.

Besides, he’s got other fish on the fryer. On Thanksgiving I do, in fact, manage to wrangle a pair of Winchester men for the Texas get-together.

Martha stands on the front porch again, hands at her hips. She looks Dean and I over, then turns her gaze on John.

She blushes.

“Glad you could make it, Mr. Winchester,” she says.

John’s been wearing a wool-knit hat pulled down over his ears on the long tramp up to the house; right now, though, the poor little hat is smushed between his hands.

“Ma’am,” he greets throatily.

Beside me, Dean’s jaw pops open; I’m pretty sure mine’s buried in the snow. No wonder John wanted to be near Amarillo. After he follows Martha into the house, I gasp, “That _sly dog_.”

“Kimmy!” Dean wails, gripping my arm. “The parents! They’re… _interbreeding_!”

 

  
Chapter 27: The Woman in the Desert, Part 1

We’re up in North Dakota when Martha calls. I answer expecting an update on the wobbly-yet-blossoming JohnandMartha… _thing_. Relationship. Courtship. Mating dance. Gah, whatever. Hurts my brain just to think about it.

Martha dated a couple of guys after Donnolly passed but nothing stuck or got serious; as far as Dean knows, John hasn’t dated since Dean’s _mom_. Ergo, it’s fun to observe from a safe distance, from between our collective fingers. Josephine calls regularly with a new panic attack, from the time that Martha, blushing, asked her which condoms men prefer to the discovery of said empty condom wrapper in the _back of Martha’s car_.

I mean, Jesus _Christ_ , people. They’re both in their late _50’s_.

So when I see the caller ID, I figure it for another horrifying revelation of parental togetherness that I can use to torment Dean into blushing, cringing horror.

Instead, Martha’s voice bites hard and flat through the phone line. “Where are you?”

I sit up in the Impala and stare out through the snow-covered windshield. Dean stands on the driver’s side with his shoulders hunched up to his cold-red ears, refilling the tank. He looks inside in time to catch my expression and he scrambles for the door.

“What?” he gasps, dropping inside the car at the same time Martha says, “Gianna Cimino has been paroled.”

I don’t breathe for about five seconds and while Martha knows better than to say anything else, Dean’s practically frantic; I know for a fact that he’s never seen the expression on my face because Gianna fucking Cimino has never been paroled before. “Gimme a minute,” I tell them both and hand the phone over to Dean.

Outside, the air bites and sobers; I pace while Dean talks to Martha. My heart pounds in my ears, in my palms, between my legs.

 _Gianna Cimino_. Jesus.

Dean comes after me, freaked way out by my reaction and whatever Martha told him. “I need to go to Nevada right now,” I tell him, holding my arm up. No way do I want him close right now; I don’t want _anyone_ near me right now. Fuck. Gianna.

“She told me not to let you go to Nevada,” Dean reports, stubborn-set and frightened.

I bark a laugh at that, hoarse and horse-like. “Martha’s looking out for me. I’m looking out for Martha, Josephine, your dad, and every goddamned one of her kids.” I suck in a breath, ‘cause he’s gonna hate this. “And you, Dean. I’m goin’ to Nevada and you’re not.”

He draws up short and everything sucks in tight. Locking down, protecting himself. “Whaddya mean?”

“It’s better for both of us, for _everyone_ , if you’re not a part of this.”

The whole locking-down thing isn’t working; he’s way too open and I can see the rising hurt. “You promised. You don’t leave me, I don’t leave you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and press my fists into the sockets until I see stars. Snow accumulates in my hair. “Dean, I’m not… I’m trying to protect you here.”

“Oh, fuck _that_ ,” he exclaims, insulted. “What’s going on, Kimmy? You tellin’ me that one woman in Nevada is worse than a whole town full of dinosaurs?”

I drop my hands and meet his eyes; they’re stormy with more than I can wade through at once. Anger, fear at being left behind--even for his own good, dammit--confusion, anxiety over how this is affecting me. It’s all right there on the surface, easy to skim across and read.

Jesus. She’ll tear him apart.

And if I bar him from coming, he’ll chase after and probably show up at some inopportune moment all pissy and loud. Then she’ll know that I was trying to protect him, trying to keep him from her. Just like if I don’t show up in Nevada, she’ll go looking for me and that’ll take her across any number of family ties. Martha could hold her own against Gianna, I don’t doubt that for a second; any of the others, I’m not too sure.

I grit my teeth, shivering from more than the cold, then walk right over and grab the front of Dean’s coat. “I am not apologizing for anything I say or do from here on out. When all this is over, you can beat the shit out of me if you want.”

Gianna fucking Cimino. I let him go to lean against the hood and laugh, low and aching. “And just so we’re clear,” I add to Dean, who’s a silent specter at my elbow, “yes, she is _way_ worse than a town full of dinosaurs.”

-o-

By the time we’re in Wyoming, I’ve calmed down a bit. “What did Martha tell you?”

“That you were in love with this chick,” Dean answers, his eyes dancing between me and the road. He hesitates, then goes on. “And that she’s a stone cold psychopath.”

I lean my head against the seat and feel the cold burrow down inside; I’m gonna need it later. “Sociopath, actually. Serial killer. Cut seven men to pieces over the space of six years.”

A blank space of astonishment from Dean’s side. “And they _paroled_ her?”

“She was only convicted for one murder, and the dude was a child molester. Cops didn’t have enough substantial evidence for the others. She’s way too smart for that…think Hannibal Lecter in chick form.”

“So how’d they catch her?”

“I tipped them off.”

He brakes hard to the side of the road and we start talking over each other.

“ _WHAT?_ ”

“Dean, keep driving, I need to--”

“We’re driving through a blizzard so you can go see a Hannah Lecter--”

“--be there when she gets out. I _have_ to, she’ll--”

“--who you sent to jail in the first place--”

“--come looking for me and I _can’t_ let her think that I’m not coming--”

“--and who you’re also supposedly _in love with?_ ”

“--because she _loves_ me, Dean.” That’s the part Martha doesn’t get, the _only_ thing I’ve ever seen Martha not understand. “She’s not gonna be lookin’ for revenge, she loves me. Drive.”

He glares at me, green eyes sparking bright and incredulous against the darkness beyond his window. We’re near the peak of the Rockies and it’s cold, so goddamned cold, but we’re heading to a desert. I let the cold in; I’m gonna need it later. “ _Drive_ ,” I snap at Dean, and turn away.

-o-

Okay, so hindsight is twenty-twenty and I shoulda explained myself to Dean a little further at the time. Can’t do that, so here goes.

Gianna Donna Cimino: born in New York to parents Luigi and Anna Cimino, first-generation immigrants. They headed for the West Coast when Gianna was four and got as far as Vegas before the money ran out. Anna found work as a waitress, then a stripper, then a prostitute, moving down the food chain until she was devoured: police found her body, nude and shot in the forehead, in a dumpster. I’ve only ever seen pictures of her, but Jesus. Women who look like that don’t live long unless they’ve got big motherfucking talons of their own.

If Anna Cimino had claws, she never showed them. Gianna was born with every nail sharpened and extended.

At the age of sixteen, Gianna took her mother place in the bars, and in her father’s bed. That lasted about two months, and that’s how long it would take Gianna to figure out how to kill _anyone_ without getting caught. They eventually did find some of her father’s body, but he owed money to a lot of folks and there wasn’t any hard evidence that pointed specifically to the guy’s own teenaged daughter.

By age twenty, she’d killed her father, her second pimp, and two Vegas high-rollers who bought her for the night. They thought they were getting themselves a pussycat and instead they got a panther.

Are you seeing a trend here? Good.

She only got nailed for the last murder, a child molester named Ronald Douglas, and the full might of the feminist movement arrived at her trial. They raised her up as some kind of vigilante for justice, defending the exploited and weak.

That last murder, though… it had nothing to do with the exploited weak and everything to do with me.

I met Gianna when I was fifteen. She was twenty-four and the wet dream of every guy between the ages of fourteen to deceased: a flower opening and unbending, all long legs and firm curves.

I was fifteen years of shaved head, bruised knuckles, and shitkicker boots. High-school dropout, foster care reject, due for a life of absolutely nothing. And it woulda stayed nothing, except for her.

Why she even looked in my direction, I’ve never figured out; but she did.

Why she fell in love with me, I’ll never know; but she did.

-o-

By the time we get to Vegas I’ve boarded myself up as tight as I’ll go; it won’t hold against Hurricane Gianna, but I’ve gotta give it the old college try, for pride’s sake if nothing else. And Hell, maybe ten years in jail has slowed her down a bit.

 _Yeah fucking right_ , I mutter to myself.

Dean has worried his lower lip until it’s red. He’s scared, but pissed, too: we’ve been together a good two years on the road and I’ve worked hard to not let him notice how much he relies on me. I’m giving him nothing now and it must be like stepping into a sudden pothole, throwing all his weaknesses and needs (which are the same thing as far as he’s concerned) in his face.

I close my eyes and feel no pity. He’s about to see all of _my_ weaknesses in a short while anyways.

The North Las Vegas Prison for women has a fair number of cheap motels clustered nearby: plenty of space to bring the kidlets when it’s time to visit Mommy. In the parking lot we pass several family clumps on our way, and all the kids have the beginning of that furious, betrayed look that’ll change to ‘deadened’ somewhere down the road. Dean pauses to look at them; I don’t.

In the motel room, Dean jitters from between the bathroom and his bed until he breaks down and pleads. “Kimmy.”

I grit my teeth, because he’s _agonized_. Part of me wants to scream at him for not staying in North Dakota; the other half knows that I’m being unfair. I cut halfway to the middle and shake my head. “Said I wasn’t gonna apologize for anything, Dean. You trust me?”

He looks me straight in the eye and nods and _God_ that fucking hurts. He’s got his scared, beaten-up little heart out on his sleeve for me.

She’ll destroy him. I briefly contemplate duct-taping him to the bed tomorrow, but he’d gnaw his arm off if he thought I needed him.

I breathe out and shrug. “She’ll be somewhere around here. This motel, or another. A restaurant or something. She won’t go far… she’ll be waitin’ for me.”

He bites that lower lip again, trying to read me and helpless to even start. Christ, he’s so bad with people. “You said she was in love with you…”

“ _Is_ in love with me. You remember that mailbox in Wyoming?”

That rolls around and catches. “The one you stop at every three months?”

“Yeah. Those are her letters, one every three months, four a year, for ten years.”

He gapes at me, appalled. “Jesus Christ, Kimmy. You’ve been having a prison romance with some psycho killer chick for ten years?”

I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling. “I never said that I wrote back.”

He gets back up, does another circuit, kicking the walls. “Fuck. I shoulda listened to Martha.”

“If you had, Gianna woulda started looking for me. She wouldn’t hurt anyone, not physically, but…” I struggle and finally thump the mattress. “Look, a pissed-off Gianna just _makes_ damage, all right? Doesn’t mean to do it, even.” _I think_.

He comes back to stand between our beds, looming. “Tell me this straight up, Kim,” he tells me sternly. “Are you… in _love_ with this psycho killer chick?”

“Completely,” I answer. I roll over and put my back to him.

Dean doesn’t ask any further questions, but it’s a good long while before his boots stop kicking across the floor.

-o-

We spend the next day in circles, spiraling out from the prison in the center like a reversed whirlpool. We eat breakfast in an IHOP, lunch in some dive with animal heads hung on every wall. Their glassy eyes, sliced and removed of all guts, stare down at us and I can’t eat a damn thing.

It’s winter in the desert and that means a relentless, ice-cold wind that pushes at our skin and dries out the insides of our noses. Dinner’s a pair of cheeseburgers eaten at the roadside; Dean and I are both basket cases by now, snapping at each other. I snarl at him for coming with me and he throws his cheeseburger down on the ground, stomps away.

He doesn’t go far, though, pacing between me and the car, and we return to orbit.

So it’s 9 pm and we’ve spent most of the day in motion. Dean’s shoulders are hiked up around his ears and I’ve got this pulse of pain behind one eye. The whirlpool’s just about run dry when we stop for a drink and some more sniping.

“I’m not even gonna ask again,” Dean snits. “Whatever. You wanna be mysterious about your little prisin girlfriend, go right ahead.”

I down a double-shot of cheap vodka, wincing as the alcohol passes over the cuts in my chapped lips. “There’s always a ‘but’, though, right? You can’t get a thought out unless you got your middle finger up. And can I just add, you’re a fine one to talk about keepin’ secrets.”

His jaw snaps shut and flexes. “Fuck you.”

I laugh and raise the second double-shot.

It’s such a slip, foot going in the pothole and throwing everything in my face: as I put my head back my eyes slide over to the bar and of course she’d do that. _Stupid, Kimmy_. Of course she’d go to the last place I’d look, to catch me worn down and frustrated. Of course she’d get me at my worst, she’d _want_ me cold-cut and fucked up. And. And I fucking _hate_ that she can do this to me. I see her, boom, and I’m sweaty, flushed, scared, so fucking horny. Suddenly I’m fifteen again and all twisted up inside, just waiting for someone to come along and cut my throat.

Black hair and dark eyes, olive skin spun like glass that looks so fragile, so breakable, but fuckall if the shards won’t cut you to pieces. Jeans and leather, boots on her feet… grungier than the last time I’d seen her, the hard edge more apparent. The little tulip’s blossomed into a Venus fly trap and nope, prison hasn’t slowed her down a bit.

She _knows_ me. Knows where I’ve come from. Knows it all and reminds me in single steady glance while she leans back against the bar. Some guy’s beside her, trying to talk to his way between her breasts, and he’s nothing but boots, a shirt, and a vibration in the air to her. Everything in her has focused square on me.

And. And _God_ but what it’s like to be the center of her vision again. This is what men want: this is why they all salivate and grope and covet her, this laser-beam stare that pinpoints and holds. The rest helps, of course, but it’s window dressing: her body’s the punctuation. Her mind is the declaration and I’ve seen men who _knew_ they were being played by her, and didn’t care. Didn’t fucking care, as long as they were close enough to catch a sliver of that wild, electrifying mind…

That mind, that is now, has always, and will always be focused on _me_.

The obsession goes both ways, is what I’m saying here.

There’s alcohol in my mouth; the sting reminds me and I swallow automatically. My fingers fumble on the shot glass and I hear it tip over on the table.

“Jesus holy Christ,” Dean whispers. He’s seen her. She’s too far away to hear but her eyes flick at him anyway, a cursory glance that barely registers his presence; nothing but boots, shirt, and a vibration in the air. Then she pushes away from the bar--without a goodbye to her would-be paramour--and walks across to our table.

She comes right over to me without any hesitation, leans down to cup my face with the barest of fingertips; they’re calloused, now, not the smoothness from before. It still sends a shock to the bottoms of my toes.

She kisses me, lips still soft; it’s practically an afterthought, physical statement of what her glance has already done.

When she finally leans back, Dean’s staring at my face. Gianna turns to fetch another chair from a table nearby, all smooth smile and charm; I meet Dean’s eyes behind her back and think, _Do you get it now? Do you see?_ No one else has ever done this to me; no one else ever will. My fingernails have left desperate little claw trails on the table’s surface from where they involuntarily curled.

Gianna takes her seat, shoulders straight. That’s new; it’s a prisoner’s stance, a parolee asking for release with pretty please and folded hands. It’s something she’s practiced and I laugh suddenly, traipsing along the fine edge of hysteria.

Dean and Gianna both cast me swift, concerned looks, then focus on each other, equally intent on giving me time to pull myself together. Oh, Christ.

“I’m Dean,” he says throatily, wide eyes skirting along her edges. Trying to scan but not to look; it’s taken him .02 seconds to figure out that he does _not_ want to get a hard-on for this woman, and .03 seconds to realize that it’s kinda like waiting for… something really inevitable. Fuck off. My brain isn’t working right now; Gianna’s an arm-reach away and her leg’s close enough that I can feel her skin’s heat. I don’t know anymore if it’s deliberate or not; I’m not sure I ever knew. “I’m Kim’s partner,” Dean finishes and he meets Gianna’s gaze.

They lock and oh, Christ. They’ll destroy each other.

She doesn’t bother with introductions, just rightly assumes that I’ve told Dean enough. “And how long have you two been partners?” First thing she’s said and it’s like a bloodhound’s cry. I shiver involuntarily.

“’Bout two and a half years.” He casts a quick glance in my direction. “Kimmy got me started on the business. Y’know, showed me the ropes.” A smile intended to blind but he’s so far out of his league with her it’s not even funny, and he called me ‘Kimmy.’

She doesn’t blink, look away or fidget, any of the things that people do in a conversation to make it less intense. This isn’t anywhere near polite; it’s a fucking cage match about to start and they’re circling, looking for weak points. “Only two and a half years? Were you a cop beforehand?”

He frowns. “No.”

“Soldier?”

His eyes look sideways at me, searching for help and she sees it, sees everything. Oh, Dean. “No.”

“You’re a bit old to be ‘starting on the business’ without _some_ kind of experience,” she says softly. “You got a criminal record, Dean…?” She raises her eyebrows, looking for a last name.

Dean, thank God, doesn’t give her even a fake one; he clamps up tight and glares, but that’s answer enough. The corner of her full lips folds into a soft dimple dangerous as a loaded gun and her eyes flick at me. “Don’t like my girl hanging out with the wrong crowd.”

I drag my goddamned voice back into the game. “You’re a fine one to talk, Ginny. You get someone to take care of you in there?” And that comes out softer, with a lot more genuine concern, than I wanted it to.

The smile turns wistful. “Carla. She was doing time for armed robbery. We weren’t… close, but we had an understanding: I handled the guards, she dealt with the other inmates. We kept each other safe.”

Minefield, but I don’t want her focusing on Dean, getting his scent and running him to ground. She might get him in the end but he’s a dangerous fucker when he’s cornered and. Christ. And I don’t want him hurting her. Jesus, after all this time, after everything…

Martha was right, I shouldn’t have come.

Gianna sees it, sees everything in my face. “I missed you,” she says, her eyes on mine, nothing else in existence. “You stopped writing.”

I shake my head slowly, to negate and to clear it. “I told you I would.”

A busboy interrupts…someone at another table wants to send her a bottle of beer. It’s three guys, hands greasy from the yard, loose grins on their faces; Gianna cuts them her best smile, hooded eyes and deepness, takes a long licking swig from the bottle. It’s more obscene than most pornography and I can’t help it, I laugh. Then I feel instantly cold: she’s probably just imagined a half-dozen ways to eviscerate all of those guys.

Her eyes swing around onto me and the smile turns genuine, delighted. “Old habits,” she waves a hand, dismissing . “So, how did you two meet?”

I’ve got my feet under me now, though. “No.” I raise a finger, level it between us. “He’s off limits.”

She looks at the finger, looks at me. Dean’s eyes dart between us, rocked up on the balls of his feet.

“All right,” she says softly, and I believe her. God help me, but I do. She hasn’t lied to me yet; manipulated, withheld, but never lied.

A flick of long black eyelashes and her tactics change just like that. _Shit_. “She must love you very much, Dean.” Gianna leans her elbows on the table, palms up, unarmed as a kitten. _Yeah fucking right_. “It’s such a pity she can’t love you like you love her.”

Well, that didn’t take her long to figure out. My mouth clicks when I swallow and I know they both hear it. We haven’t talked about it; there wasn’t any point. Dean very determinedly doesn’t look at me, keeps his eyes narrowed on her face. “Do you want something in particular,” he asks slowly, “or is it a personal hobby to fuck with people’s heads?”

She raises the bottle, smiles like the flash of a knife in the sun. “Both.” She drinks.

Dean still isn’t looking in my direction. “What do you want, Gianna?” I ask.

All the skin on my back turns to gooseflesh when she looks at me. _You_ , her eyes say, but her mouth says, “They called me ‘rehabilitated.’ Good to rejoin society.” Her head cocks. “What do you think?”

I look at the curve of her breasts underneath the black vinyl jacket, the delicate whorl of her ear, the black killer behind her eyes. “I’ll put up a prayer for society.”

She laughs, a wild sound, and people turn. “Ah, Kimberly. There’s no fooling you. You know where all the bodies are buried.”

Ice blows into my stomach, expands outward. Around us, the bar moves; across the table, Dean finally looks in my direction, ready to whip out a knife any moment. Gianna and I look into one another and we might as well be alone.

“Do I?” I ask hoarsely.

Her head tilts to one side, giving me space to figure it out. “Do you want to?” When I don’t answer immediately she adds, “It’s actually closer to ten. The body count. You knew about six, I think, but only about that last one for sure.” Without any hesitation, she turns to Dean and says, “It was her father. Did she tell you that? Her father fucked her when she was just a baby, and I killed him for it.”

I freeze up, dead to rights. It’s so familiar, this feeling: hate and love like a screw that twists straight into my chest.

No one, fucking _no one_ knows me like she does.

“Fuck you,” I whisper and feel the hot shame of tears in my eyes. “Fuck you, Gianna.”

There is no apology in her eyes. “So you didn’t tell him,” she murmurs. “I always wondered if you’d ever trust anyone else enough to tell them that.”

No. Not a soul, not even Martha; Dean’s got his secrets that can’t be questioned, and so have I. Secrets that she’s just laid out on the table like a fucking hand of cards. It’s my turn not to look at Dean as I drag in a ragged breath. “Fuck you. I’m out.”

I get up, ready to make good on that; can’t really say for sure if I’m bluffing or not, ‘cause I’ve never actually tried to walk away from her before, even when I turned her in.

Except then her eyes waver from hurt to remorse before landing on impassive. It’s too fast to be deliberate, no conscious thought dragging out the change in expressions. _She tends to just_ make _damage_. “I’m sorry,” she whispers and looks away, nails working the label on her beer.

I stand over her, trying to breathe. Dean’s up, too, ready to bolt or fling me over his shoulder and carry me off into the night; his face twists with frustration when I slowly sit back down. Gianna’s eyes flicker in my direction from beneath her lashes, but there’s no artifice here, at least none that I can tell.

Of course if anyone could fool me, it’d be her; she taught me how to read people in the first damn place.

“Nine bodies,” I say through the gravel in my throat. “You willing to show me where?”

“Maybe,” she says, her mask back in place. “It’s been a long day. Where are you staying?”

She’s giving me a respite, in apology for her fuckup. I could run for the hills and she’s giving me that option, too.

She knows me better than anyone. She built me from the ground up. It’s been ten years, though, and she’s not completely sure what I’ll do.

I inhale and exhale. “Buy a girl some breakfast?”

She doesn’t smile, but the skin around her eyes loses its tightness. “There’s a pancake place down the street. 10 am?”

Nine bodies. All of them probably pimps, rapists, and Johns, not exactly the cream of society; but knowing what I know now about murders and vengeful ghosts, it’s not like there’s much of a choice.

“We’ll be there.”

 

  
Chapter 28: The Woman in the Desert, part 2

When Dean and I get back to the room, I lay flat on my back and stare at the ceiling. The bed dips and Dean settles, knee bumping against my shoulder. "So you gonna tell me anything?" he tries, uncertain. "You wanna play twenty questions?"

I sigh and close my eyes. "You shoulda stayed in Dakota, Dean."

Even with my eyes closed, I can see his reaction: twitch in his mouth that's so easy to overlook, eyelashes sweeping down to hide himself. "Okay," he answers softly and the mattress dips again as he moves away.

He sounds so fucking _resigned_ that my hands move on automatic, grabbing blindly at fabric and hauling him back until he's kinda awkwardly sprawled at my side. I keep my eyes closed but I can feel his resistance in every muscle, shaky with the effort to keep from touching me.

I remember, belatedly, what she said… _she'll never love you the way you love her_. That's what he thinks this is about. "It's okay, Dean."

Again, I don't have to see him to know that he purses his lips in resistance; but need for reassurance overcomes pride and he flops down beside me. The bed's too narrow and our shoulders bump awkwardly; my arm drops off the side to dangle above the floor.

It's all so familiar: the body at my side, the ceiling fan idling on low. I laugh hoarsely. "We used to do this. Gianna and I. We'd lie in bed for hours and I'd talk about how bad I wished I'd never been born."

It's definitely not the reassurance Dean was hoping for, but I'm nowhere near capable of giving that to him right now; he still turns his head towards me, willing to listen. I open my eyes and keep them on the ceiling.

Back then, Gianna had done all the reassuring. She'd had answers for every question, retorts and reasons that undid every knot in me. There had been days on end when we hadn't left the bed except to pee or eat; days when she'd fuck me stupid, fucked me until I came apart in her hands and all the poison inside me bled out. "She made me something. When I was nothing, she _wanted_ me. She was the only one who gave a damn about me back then and I thought for a long time…that it'd only ever be her."

Before Dean, before Martha or Donnolly or Reese, there had been Gianna. Crazy damn psycho bitch, and she'd been the only one who cared about me at all. "I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her," I tell the ceiling, and Dean. "She did a whole lot of other shit to me, too, tried to fuck my head up, make me like her; but if it hadn't been for her, I woulda laid down and died years ago."

No one hopes to die alone and Gianna had wanted the same thing Dean wants from me now: a companion, someone to match her stride.

"So what happened?" Dean asks in a whisper, like he's afraid to speak too loud in the still room.

I sit up, suddenly unable to have him anywhere near me. "She wanted me to match her body count. I wouldn't; she tried to force the issue. So I went down to the police station and told them everything I knew."

He sits up beside me, like he can't stand to _not_ to be at my shoulder. "And your dad?"

I shudder and pull away, then, beyond caring what it does to him. He stays on the bed, and that's the thing that keeps me from bolting from the room entirely: Dean never leaves. Just watches the backs of people he loves until they fade from sight.

The bathroom's just far enough away for my own comfort. I splash tepid water on my face and wait while Dean figures out that this is about as much as I can stand right now. If he pushes me on it, I might have to start throwing punches: I don't often make promises, but when I do, I keep them. I won't leave him, no matter how much I really fucking want to get away from him and everyone else right now.

Dean gets the point and keeps his distance, does nothing more than swing his legs over the side of the bed. "So what's the plan, Kimmy?" He sounds hoarse, like he's the one under strain here. "Are we actually meeting her in the morning?"

Water droplets feel like fingers on my collarbone; I wipe them away roughly. "If she says she's got bodies out there, then she does. Gianna doesn't lie, not to me."

He laughs, strangled. "Christ, do you hear yourself? This chick's been in jail for the last nine years, you're the one who put her there, and you TRUST her?"

"I didn't say I trusted her. Fuck, no." The towel feels like a Brill-o pad on my face; must have a sunburn. "I don't believe for a second that she's just taking us out to show us the bodies; she's got some game she's playing here, don't doubt it for a second. Gianna's probably got crafty ways of eating breakfast cereal."

"So we're just gonna follow her out into the desert, let her do whatever she's gonna do?"

I lean on the doorway and finally meet his eyes. Yeah, he's real skittish about this, legs jigging on the balls of his feet. That's good; he'll need every ounce of his guard for this. "We're gonna follow her out into the desert with guns in our hands and our backs to each other, if we can manage it. It's either that or try to find the bodies ourselves, Dean."

He, of all people, understands the necessity of that. It still brings a scowl to his face and after a moment, he gets up and takes a few steps toward me. I close my eyes briefly, knowing that if he comes about two inches closer, I'm gonna have to go out the bathroom window, or do major physical damage to one of us.

Thank God, he's sees the tension and stays where he is; he gets his eyes on mine, though, and holds them. "You tell me right now, Kimmy: we're only going out there because of the bodies. No other reason. You're not--you got _no_ other reason for wantin' to have _anything_ to do with this chick."

When I look away first, he slumps and mutters, "Christ," then spends the rest of the night cleaning his guns. They actually won't help that much against Gianna, but they can't hurt, either.

Gianna doesn't lie to me; I don't lie to Dean. Gravity pulls down. That's the way the world works.

-o-

Gianna in the morning is an entirely different creature than at night: in the dark she's walking sin, the kind of woman who goes willingly to her knees in the dirt, though she's likely to cut yours out from under you while she's down there. By the morning light, she's fresh-scrubbed and clear-eyed, still so soft after all that hard time in the big house. And oh, she's so fucking good: she's seen the little lost boy in Dean's eyes and knows just how to play it. When we walk in, she's already got two orders of pancakes waiting.

'Course, Dean isn't the only little lost kid here. Not by a long shot. We're so fucked.

"Sleep well?" she inquires, leaving off the _sweethearts_.

Dean doesn't touch the pancakes, just puts his back against the booth and watches her face with an expression that I've learned to associate with Sam. As guarded as he can get, but he's expecting an attack somewhere between A to Z while Gianna invents a whole new language.

She looks him over, then me. "Are we on?"

I pull out my own special (less effective) brand of 'fuck you' smile. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

The food gets left behind, forlorn little pancakes turning soggy in their own syrup. When we reach the Impala, Gianna stops short for a moment, then raises one eyebrow and walks a circuit all around the car. Beside me, Dean tenses like a steel cable snapping taut, and I can only pray that she's got the good sense not to _touch_.

No surprise, she does: Gianna comes back around the other side and raises that same brow at Dean. "I don't know anything about cars, but she's sleeker than shit. I suppose that's what you were trying for."

Dean blinks at her. Her tone's pleasant and her words, when constructed in the English language, are full of praise… and yet there's something mocking about them. The Impala suddenly looks-- _silly_ , like a kid at the party who always tries too hard to look cool.

"Which direction?" I ask her.

"North. Don't remember the road names or numbers… I'll just have to direct you as we go."

She looks at me as she says it. If that's an attempt to upset Dean's status as the Impala's sole driver, she got that one wrong: he climbs right into the back seat, from which he's got both of us in sight and reaching distance. He has yet to say a word since he got out of bed this morning.

There's a moment, when Dean is inside the car and we're both outside: I look at Gianna across the top of the car. She looks back and nine years drop away in a twitch of her mouth. She smiles at me like she did back _then_ , when she'd been the goddess pulling me out of deep water.

I grip the car handle, shaking and fifteen years old at heart. I pitch my voice for just the two of us. "What do you want, Gianna?"

She hesitates, then smiles again quick and sad. I feel suddenly, ridiculously grateful for Dean, for the silent prickle of his presence; without him right there, I don't know what might happen. I could be anything, do anything, when Gianna looks at me like that.

Then she slips into the car, settling on the leather seat with one pale arm stretched across the top. I swallow down my desire and terror, and get my ass behind the wheel; the back of my head tingles where Dean's gaze lands. I start the car.

It's not me she wants to talk to, though: when we leave the city limits, she breaks the tense silence by turning around and asking Dean, "So where are you from, Dean?"

I grip the wheel. "I said he's off-limits."

She eyes me, calm and curious. "I can't talk to him at all?"

 _Don't you fucking dare_ , I want to say, but Dean cuts me off, probably wanting to keep her attention on him. "Tell you what. I'll answer a question if I get to ask one."

Oh, Christ. Gianna laughs with a toss of ink-black hair. "Oh, you got that game from Kimmy, didn't you?"

Dean's eyes flash at mine in the rearview mirror, uncertain and a little guilty. "Yeah, maybe. So I'm unoriginal."

"Don't feel bad. She got it from me." She turns to face him fully, throwing her mile-long legs up on the seat beside me, toes snugged against my hip. My heart does a freaky jump-kick and I couldn't interject to stop this if I wanted to. "You go first."

"Kansas."

"One-word answers aren't allowed."

Dean's eyes narrow at her. "Lawrence, Kansas. 'Bout 5 miles out of the middle of town. Parents built the house."

Three points to an answer. That's just like Dean, who knows all about the mystical roots of the number 3; unfortunately, it's one too many and after Dean finds out that we're going to a rock quarry, Gianna asks, "If your parents built the house, why aren't you in it?"

His eyes flicker at mine again, but he sowed this row and Gianna's already got me twisted up enough that I'm a little inclined to leave him out to dry. _You wanna take her on, go right ahead. Shoulda stayed in Dakota, Dean_. "It--burned down. When I was four." Then, because he apparently can't _not_ , he adds, "Killed my mom."

She nods; nothing she didn't already know one way or the other.

Maybe Dean picked up on my brief semi-abandonment, because he comes back with, "How did you and Kim meet?"

Gianna pauses long enough that I glance over; that's just what she was waiting for, because she's already looking at me when I turn, and she grins when I do. "Dyke bar in Vegas. Kimmy was underaged and the bouncer was throwing her out, or trying to. It wasn't going too well."

I can't help but laugh a little at the memory, which is bad. In the back, Dean says, "I can imagine," like he wants to laugh, too. Yep. Both of us, totally fucked.

Gianna doesn't immediately press her advantage, though; she cocks her head at me. "She was a lot different back then. She'd shaved her head, wore camo pants--looked scary as shit, actually."

"So why'd you go for her?"

I look over again, quickly; but Gianna's eyes slide to Dean. "It's not your turn. How did _you_ meet Kim?"

Dean pauses, then says, "We were hunting the same person. Crossed paths, hit it off. She carries a six-inch dildo in her jacket, so I guess you could say that I was _intrigued_."

Gianna chuckles, her dark chocolate eyes flashing. "Oh, she got that from me, too."

"Guess you can't be all bad, then," but his defenses are sky-high again, cautious. "Why are you being all friendly, if Kim turned you in? Why are you doing this?"

"Two questions," Gianna says in a voice of soft iron. "You only get the first one." She pauses and turns to me, tilts her head. "Take a right."

There's a gravel road coming up; she didn't even turn to look at it. I turn on the blinker and pull off, easing the car over uneven bumps. We cross a cattleguard and it rattles loudly under the tires. As dust kicks up around us, I feel Gianna's gaze on my face and I pin mine on the road ahead.

"She knew for a year," Gianna says softly. "I'm guessing she didn't tell you that part. She knew about some of the gentlemen we're visiting today, but she didn't know all of them and she didn't understand _why_. She wanted me to stop, begged me to. Eighteen years old, just a little baby. My little baby girl."

The sweetest curl in her voice. I shiver and grip the wheel.

She goes on. "I was her whole world. I made sure of that--wanted her with me until the end of my life, wanted her to die with me. No one else loved her; no one else wanted her, not back then. I'm betting she sleeps with every woman she meets, now, looks for love everywhere--"

"You gonna answer my fuckin' question, or what?" Dean breaks in.

Gianna laughs again, but there's nothing genuine about it this time. "Got a temper, don't you?"

My head snaps in her direction, heart thumping; she's eyeing Dean with a look I know. "Gianna," I say, warning and plea.

She looks at me all sideways, not pretending not to understand, but also not changing the gleam in her eye. "It's about five miles up ahead, a bit of a walk off the road. We're the same, her and me," she says to Dean, "even if Kimmy pretends we're not: we've been betrayed. The worst kind of betrayal, from our own blood--the men who were supposed to love us, protect us, keep us safe… and they fucked us instead.

"It's not something I expect you to understand, Dean… the feeling of being _wrong_. Of being made to be hurt and it's only a matter of time. Just that. Time. I had time, Dean, and I used it. I protected myself."

"Not all of them," I say to the sky and the desert. It's an old argument of ours, fueled by the half-remembered memory of a little brother that I'm pretty sure is dead; I didn't save him. "Not all of them."

She meets my eyes, remote. An ice goddess in the desert heat. "It's a matter of time, Kimmy. Don't be silly. Silly girls wind up in dumpsters with their throats cut."

"Like your mom?"

That hits close to the bone; she flinches imperceptibly, but then rebounds right at Dean. "Kim didn't understand, so I found her Daddy. She understood after that, oh yeah. She saw why."

In the rearview mirror, Dean's eyes are fixed on her. "And?"

Gianna laughs. "And? And she went down to the police station. Not because she couldn't understand it, or because she was scared of me--I'll never hurt her." Her toes curl against my leg, pinching the denim and sending electricity crackling along my skin. "Never my little baby girl.

"Aw, that's sweet. So why?"

Gianna doesn't bother correcting the rule-breaking question; all her attention is on me, tracing the line of my nose, my brows with nothing but her gaze. It's a physical sensation on my skin. "Because she thought it was _the right thing to do_."

They're both looking at me, now. I drive on, hands right at ten and two; on the wheel, Watson, keep both hands on the wheel.

"That's Kim for you," Dean says, an edge in his voice that almost sounds like pride. Christ, Dean.

"Yes," Gianna answers. "Yes, it is. I misjudged that, back then. Kimmy's a believer. I don't know who taught it to her, or if she was just born with the fear of God, but I had every other part of her. I had her love, I had her trust, her hope. But not that one thing, and she gave up everything else for it. Her whole world. I don't need to punish her… I know it hurt her so."

She's not lying. She wouldn't lie, not about this, and that makes it so much worse. My eyes prickle hot, and the road ahead of me blurs together in the heat waves and tears. We're heading up into some hills now, the gravel road winding around the sides, steadily climbing.

"So why are you doing this?" Dean asks, quiet, his defenses down.

Shit. Gianna straightens in a single motion, fluid shift from friend to foe. "It's my turn." She leans, arm stretching across the seat, to touch his face; her smile is poisoned sugar. "What's the name of the woman you hurt?"

I had my mouth open to cut her off somehow, but it hangs there. Nothing comes out; it's like the wind whistling past the car has stolen my voice. I _want_ to stop this, I do, but I also want to _know_. My promise was to never ask and to never leave him--but I'm not doing the asking here.

Gianna smiles, cat with her mouse. "You looked to the right when I talked about betrayal. A memory, then. And _guilt_. What guilt, Dean?" There's the faint smack of flesh on flesh and I twist around quickly; Dean's smacked her hand away from his face and Gianna retracts it, teeth shown in a smile. "Oh, and there's that temper."

In the rearview mirror, Dean's face is white. He could simply not answer, end the game; but I know he won't, and Gianna knows he won't. Dean doesn't back down, doesn't admit defeat, until he's bloody on the ground and maybe not then.

After a long, awful stretch of silence, he says, "Mary."

"No one-word answers," Gianna chides.

Dean sucks in a short breath, hissing like the touch of a heated pot handle on skin. "Mary. She was in love with my brother, and I was in love with her."

Gianna's mouth pops open all soft and delighted. "Really? How Shakespearean."

Dean rushes in, trying to push through. "Why're you taking us out here?"

"Want to lay things to rest," Gianna answers promptly, eyes steady on his face. "The state says I'm rehabilitated; I want to know what Kimmy has to say about the matter. What did you do to Mary?"

I'm not looking at Dean anymore, and I know he's not looking at me; there are still no words in my mouth, no attempt to stop this, and I know he will remember that. I have never left him. I will never leave him. But I have abandoned him, once. I can claim special circumstances--and Gianna's the only thing that would warrant that clause--but there it is. In that car, I abandoned him.

"Raped her," Dean says like I know he will, toneless. Just stating a fact. "More than once. She ran away from me in the end." And then he laughs bitterly, breaks the pattern of threes. "That wasn't why she left, though. M'brother, he's what was keeping her there. Not me. So," he spits, voice catching and flaring sharp, the cruel burn of a blowtorch. "My turn. Did your daddy fuck you?"

I flinch, my guts twisting up in shock. He's not talking to me, though. I might as well be on the moon: his eyes bore into Gianna and I see what he's doing. It's the same as that bar in Phoenix, when he'd squared off against Sam and spat venom until Sam took a swing. He can't back down, _won't_ , so he's doing the only other thing he can think of to shut her up.

"Dean--" I gasp, too late.

"Oh, no," he cuts me off. "You don't get to come back into it now." He doesn't look away from Gianna, doesn't acknowledge me any further than that. The train's coming and he's determined to jump in the way.

She glares back, lips drawn tight across her teeth. This is the only time that I remember her being ugly. "Yes."

Dean smirks. "No one-word ans--" and Gianna dives across the seat at him. I scream wordlessly and twist back like some kind of fucking junior league referee at a boxing match.

Gianna times it exactly right: there's a hill to the side of the road, steep enough to send us squealing out of control when we go straight over the side. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Gianna even planted the trees that crash and dent the Impala's doors, but keep us from rolling; hell, I'd even wonder about that big rock ahead of us. The Impala doesn't exactly have an air bag: I brace my arms against the wheel, instinct to preserve the noggin.

Then a stray, flailing limb of someone whacks me in the back of the skull just as we run into the boulder. It's enough to break the lock my elbows have made and my forehead connects solidly, exploding in fireworks behind my eyes.

 

Chapter 28: The Woman in the Desert, part 3

There's blood on my face, sticky smear on my eyebrow and dampness running down the side of my nose. There's a white-hot hammer of pain thumping against my skull just above my hairline and when I touch a wobbly finger there, the salt on my skin stings the cut.

I straighten away from the steering wheel, wincing as dried blood plucks out a few eyebrow hairs. The windshield is still in one piece, surprising given the size of the rock that rests against the Impala's crumpled hood. Dean's gonna be _pissed_.

Dean. Gianna.

My attempt to twist around runs straight into a brick wall of spasming muscles. Aw fuck. Whiplash like a mother; I can only turn my head enough to see the back door on the Impala's opposite side. It hangs open and on its window is a long streak of blood, bright in the sun.

The back seat is empty. So's the rest of the car.

Getting out of the Impala is a dose of pure shit, delivered to my brain in waves of sore muscles and dizziness; the world threatens to jerk out from under my feet, and I lean against the door until the feeling passes. The outside of the car is as Gianna-and-Dean-free as the interior, and a whole lot hotter. The sun's straight overhead now: I must have been out for a while. All around me lies the desert brush of Southern Nevada, spotted with a few dry, gnarled trees--including the half-broken ones beside the road that kept us from rolling straight down the side of the hill. Heat waves rebound from the hard earth to smack me right in the face, and I puke, spitting and spitting and leaning on the side of the car, one hand holding the underside of my own jaw to relieve the awful strain on my neck.

"Shit," I accuse the light, cracked earth beneath my boots. "Shit."

The earth says nothing back. I try the air, lifting my head and bellowing, " _Dean_." The sound stabs into my eardrums and makes my head spin; the only answer I get for my trouble is the faint echo of my own shout bouncing back at me. My cell phone, when I yank it out, presents me with a blank-bar middle finger.

After a few more moments of pounding, sick misery, I drag myself along the car towards the back, hot metal toasting my fingers. The Impala rests at a downward angle, only brought to a halt by the rock: I grit my teeth as I open the trunk, listening to the creak and drip of the engine and wondering if the Iron Maiden's gonna go up in a fireball at any second.

She holds fast and I drag the compartment open, prop it up with Dean's favorite shotgun. The insides are a mess, things thrown in all direction by the impact; nothing looks missing, though. Which means that the only weapons in play here are the twin Glocks on Dean's back, the knife on his ankle, and…

My stomach lurches and I clap a hand to my own side. Colt .45, gone. I stumble back down to the driver's door to check, but it's nowhere on the seat or the floor. Which means that it was taken.

Dean's got two on him already, and that only leaves one other person.

I claw my way back up the uneven tilt of loose earth to the trunk. My spare SIG is in among Dean's weaponry and I snatch it up; I'm pretty sure it's got silver bullets in it right now, but silver works just as well on humans, too.

That thought takes a moment to connect and then I'm sick again, spewing air and a little string of stomach acid across my cracked, split lips.

Then I tuck the SIG in the back of my pants, grab Dean's shotgun, and run back up onto the road. They couldn't have gone any further down the hill: the slope gets steeper and impassable. I stagger across the deep ruts where the Impala's tires bit into the earth, using my free hand against the ground; there aren't footprints ahead of my own, but then again, I'm shit at tracking. There's no sign of them on the road, either. The sun's a steady burn against my eyes, but there's nothing to miss in the long curve of gravel that curls around the side of the hills in both directions.

Shit, shit. I think of the way Gianna had looked at him like a big cat in the jungle, and the ugly, tight way Dean had goaded her. Someone's not walking away from this alive and I take off running down the gravel road. She'd said five more miles, and Gianna's a woman of her word.

Running's an exercise in self-abuse, but at this point I'm up for it in every sense of the word. Jesus _fucking_ Christ, why did I bring Dean? Any man would have been bad enough when combined with Gianna, but _Dean_ is a disaster of nuclear proportions, and I _know_ that, I fucking _knew_ that in Dakota, but I'd been too turned on and freaked out by the thought of Gianna. I could have been her, once: it'd been touch-and-go, whatever Dean believes of me, and I'd known more for longer than I should have before turning her in. I could have been her, and I'd needed Dean like a lifeline, a solid physical reminder of all the years between me and that fifteen-year-old girl.

And he'd known that instinctively. He'd refused to let me go alone, and now I'm not the one who's drowning.

Killing him ain't the worst that Gianna can do.

I crest a hill and there's the rock quarry. Sandstone, probably: big square chunks have been taken out of the hills, exposing the pinkish lines of age laid on top of one another. It's like an oven, all that light-colored rock bouncing the sun's rays off one another, and I wheeze. Great, a bout of heat stroke is just what I fucking need…

Distantly, somewhere to my left, Gianna calls, " _Kim_."

I grunt and lurch in that direction, my heart beating too fast in the press of adrenaline and heat. Shit, I must have one hell of a concussion: I can barely fuckin' _see_.

" _Kim_ ," Gianna calls again, wailing now, and I alter my course towards her voice. Dean's not yelling, so he's either staying quiet or he's… but I haven't heard any gunshots and there's just this little part of me, this little voice saying, _She won't do it, she won't, she won't_.

"Gianna!" I scream back, too beat-up to get much oomph behind the words. The sun's in my eyes, lying low on the horizon…

On the horizon.

The sun's _on the motherfucking HORIZON_.

So why the fuck does it look and feel like the noonday blaze all around me?  
I stop short, the heels of my boots digging into the crumbly earth, my eyes squeezed shut against the unnatural glare. The sun's about two inches above a mountain range to the west; when I check my watch, the hour-hand points to 5. "Shit," I hiss, shivering.

I can't get my head to tilt back, but it doesn't matter: now that I'm really looking, I can't see any shadows around me that would point to a light source. That kicks me right in the guts, because ghosts see what they want, right? Dean's told me stories, women searching for their husbands, fathers for their children…

The light around me moves. It's not something I _see_ so much as _feel_ , a burn on my skin. My spine straightens instinctively, muscles locking up tight; I'm such shit at this, though. If I had Dean or an EMF meter out here, either of them would be going nuts.

 _Think, Watson!_ I don't have any salt on me, or Dean's journal. Or Dean, who would probably be yelling at me right now. I can imagine him there, arms folded, glaring and tapping his foot, waiting for me to catch on. _Think_.

 _Dean's told me stories… women searching for their husbands, fathers for their children_.

My brain, of course, is about three steps ahead of me: when I make the connection I stand very still, trying to get a sense of my surroundings. The light's still blinding, and moves in passes around me; there's a breeze on my face, though, and the sensation of space in my ears. That freaks me the fuck out for a moment, but then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I try taking a step backward, praying that I haven't been lead too far, that I'm not about to step into a cactus or off a cliff or into a den of rattlesnakes.

The light dims. I take another step and another, tripping a bit over rocks, until the world darkens into something bearable. It's definitely late afternoon; shadows stretch all around me, so dark to my light-battered eyes. Before me hovers a small, round orb of light, about two feet in diameter, that bobs right at head-level.

About fifteen feet beyond it, the hillside's been shorn in two by the mining, a sheer drop of about fifty feet. It'd been about to lead me straight off the edge.

 _Think, Watson_. Orbs on a deserted road, leading people on. Possible dead bodies nearby. And the Impala had gone off the road so quickly back there, had landed perfectly on the hillside in a way that wrecked it without wrecking _us_.

Fucking spook lights.

I swallow down the burn of panic. Awright. This shit I know; _this_ I can handle. Except I still haven't got salt or anything else on me to take down this Casper; getting proper supplies would mean running all the way back to the Impala, which I don't even think I could _do_ in my current state. Besides, I don't want to let this fucker out of my sight: if I turn my back, it'll probably turn up behind me and send me ass over teakettle into a gorge or something.

Which, fuck, it might already have done to Gianna and Dean. Okay, not _Dean_ , probably: he'd figure it out, spidey-sense going wonky in ways that my thick head doesn't pick up. And Gianna…

The thought of them lying at the bottom of a cliff somewhere is enough to make me snarl and point my gun at the orb-thingy. Silver bullets don't work on spook lights, but pulling a couple shots sure make _me_ feel a lot better. The light bobs a few times, weaving and dancing but not fading away.

The echo of gunshots fades. To the south, someone bellows, " _Kimmy_."

It's not Gianna. I abandon my standoff with the orb-thingy and take off at a dead sprint; I don't know if it's possible to outrun a ghost, but I'm not even thinking about the damn thing at this point. The hill gets a bit less sheer to the south, the operative words being "a bit"; I wind up skidding down on my ass, with my feet out in front of me. Dirt crumbles and fills up my boots, and I yelp as my palm loses most of its skin in one go. The line of the sun cuts halfway down the hill, and I slide into shadow.

And then back into light again: the unnatural cut of earth at the base of the hill is lit up like Dick Clark's ball on New Year's Eve. I get my feet under me and run down the last stretch, then swing the shotgun up the second I hit level ground. Again, not gonna do much good; still makes me feel a lot better.

There are at least twenty of them. Little China-lamp orbs, dipping and dancing around the gully. Around _Gianna_ , who stands about thirty feet away with her back to me, unmoving, her head raised. Dean's crouched on the ground near her, his head bowed and his eyes squeezed shut.

He must have heard me coming, though, because he shouts without opening his eyes. "Kim?"

"Here," I call, voice cracking. "I'm here."

" _Kimmy_?" Gianna's voice is high and thin. She hasn't moved an inch

"It's okay," I tell her. "It's okay, just--"

"What _are_ they?" she breaks in. "What do they _want_?"

There's too many of them to all be _hers_ , but they've got a definite focus to them, moving in slow, meandering circles with her in the center. Spook lights pull people off roads all the time and I grit my teeth; nine of them together have done damage on their own, added to their number. "Just stay still, awright? Stay still, baby, it's okay. Dean?"

He licks his lips, hunches a little closer to the ground. I can't see him too well, but his face is streaked and smudged with dirt. "Spook lights, Kim."

"Guess so." I edge closer, eyeing the lights. No telling what will set these things off; usually they're content with just leading people off roads and cliffs, but this ain't exactly a usual day.

They don't seem particularly violent, though; if anything, they look… happy. Bobbing and dancing like they are.

Gianna's got her own kind of light that leads people astray. Apparently it extends past death, too.

"You got any salt?" Dean asks, his voice a rough scratch in the too-still air.

"No. Handgun--silver bullets--and a shotgun."

Teeth flash white on his dirty face, but it's not a smile. "Gotta go old school, then. You remember those Anasazi things I showed you?"

"Yeah."

"North-South-East-West."

"You think they'll hold still for that?"

"If they give you trouble," Dean says, "I'll distract 'em. Don't think they like having another guy show up with their girl."

Which explains why he's doubled over. I remember how bad the light hurt in my own eyes just a few minutes ago and grit my teeth; his means of distraction would probably get his damn fool head ripped off, and that's just like Dean.

Don't think it'd work, anyway: they'd finish him off in a hurry and then move on to me and Gianna. Or maybe just me, which presents an idea. "Gianna," I call, moving to my left with the shotgun still raised. "Sing to 'em."

"What?"

"Easy, baby. Just sing for me, awright?"

She doesn't turn, doesn't look away from the lights; but after a moment, she start in with an old Italian lullaby. At least I think it's a lullaby, since she used to sing me to sleep with it. For all I know, it's a war chant calling for the heads of children to be put on spikes. " _Dormi, mia bela dormi, dormi e fa la nana chè quando sarai mama non dormirai così_.…"

I haven't exactly got a compass with me, so I put my back to the sun and drop to one knee. "Dean. What goes in the west?"

"Aw, shit, Kimmy. I told you to practice these things."

"I fuckin' _did_ , asshole. Shut up, I got hit in the head and I'm seein' triple here. What goes in the west?"

"For fuck's sake--swirly outside, squiggly and triangle on the inside, point the triangle to the north."

I've got a switchblade in my boots, but the dirt's as hard as the stones that surround us; I end up banging the shotgun's butt against it a few times to loosen the earth.

Gianna sings on, a soft sway of alto.

" _Dormi mia bela dormi,_  
 _dormi e fa la nana,_  
 _chè quando avrai lo sposo_  
 _non dormirai così_."

I follow the line of my makeshift circle around to the south. From there, I can see Dean a little better: he doesn't look hurt too bad, just a bloody nose that's smeared his mouth and the front of his shirt. A few other nicks and cuts, the knees of his jeans torn open and the skin beneath bleeding freely.

He's got his eyes screwed tight, though, like he's holding something in. Or holding something out. "Dean?"

"Open circle to the outside," he says too quietly. "Another inside, the cup."

The spook lights edge away from my sigils, moving back to the southwest until they hug the outer edges of vision, flickering slightly. I move a little faster now: if they're going to take exception, they'll do it soon.

They don't, though. When I glance up from the east corner, I see that they're actually fucking _dancing_ now in time to Gianna's soft song.

Now she's the one I see. Pale and shaking, she stares back. There's a cut above her left eye and she holds her arm against her side, but she's alive and beautiful and singing for me. I smile, wink with as much reassurance as I can without fucking up whatever effect her singing has on the spirits around us. In moments of rare masochism, I still wonder if she realized what they were, what she'd truly _done_. The wound she'd laid in the world.

I never got to find out; when I circle back to the north, I see that she's got my Colt in her right hand, dangling at her side.

" _Dormi mia bela dormi_  
 _nel tuo leto di gigli,_  
 _chè quando avrai dei fi gli,_  
 _non dormirai così_."

When she stops singing, I get a few deep breaths in me before I step into the circle behind her and say, "Awright. That'll keep them back for a while. Dean, can you walk?"

Neither of them moves for a moment, and then Gianna turns to face me.

It's Dean who speaks. "Kim," he says in that same too-quiet voice, "maybe you should--"

"Don't even," I snarl, my eyes on Gianna. "Gimme the gun."

Her back's straight, the curves of her mouth deepening into severity. People look at her and forget how strong she is… but of course they do, that's the whole freakin' point.

She gutted my dad. I'd still been hauling my ass out of the car, confused and scared and nineteen years old; he hadn't been a small guy himself and he'd loomed so large in my head. And she'd gone right up and gutted him, split him open with a knife, all to make me 'understand.'

I understood, all right. I understood that I could trade one cage for another. Be free of my father and become Gianna's little baby girl forever, taken care of. Beloved. Hold her hair back while she cut men to pieces.

"Do you know what he's done?" Gianna's not afraid anymore; she's still pale, but there's not an ounce of fear in her eyes. "Have you asked?"

"No."

A quick twist of emotion. "You did with me. _You_ asked."

I close my eyes a moment against her brightness. "Yeah. I did."

"He raped a woman. Hurt her. He told me so." She cocks her head at me, eyes glittering; but it's the same expression she'd had when she sang. Christ, she's _worried_ for me. "How soon do you think before he does it to you?"

"He won't. Give me the gun."

She laughs, a torn-open noise full of grief and desperation so old it's become mantra, a heartbeat, the driving force of her life. "It's a matter of time, Kimmy."

I grit my teeth and repeat my part of the mantra. "Not all of them. Not this one, Gianna."

"Kim." Dean again, a bit stronger than before and I finally look at him. There's no sign of a struggle anywhere on his body or Gianna's; he came out here _willingly_ , let her lead him out at gunpoint before the spook lights got to them.

I know Gianna would never hurt me, but Dean doesn't. He lifts tired, flat eyes to mine and says, "It's okay. Take it easy, wouldya?"

"The _fuck_ it is!" Now I'm shaking, too. _Please. Please, not this_. She looks so determined and he looks so… _accepting_.

Gianna can do worse things to Dean than kill him, and she's already done them. She's asked and he's told and she's twisted it up worse than it ever was before, worse even than Dean could have made it.

"You fuck," I sob. "You dumb fuck. I don't leave you. I promised."

Gianna's face freezes for a moment and then her eyes rip open wide, horror and pain and betrayal.

It's the one thing she's always wanted from me, and the one thing that I would never give her.

When she turns toward Dean, snarl curling her lips and fury making her so damn ugly, I shoot her right in the face with the shotgun.

It's not even a choice in my head, not a decision I need to worry about. What led to it, sure, I'll worry about that, and later I'll realize that _this_ , this spray of blood and her beautiful body slumping to the ground, _this_ was what she had been looking for when she'd brought me here. Hell, she's probably been looking for it for a long time, ever since she answered the knock at the hotel room door and found a dozen cop cars outside waiting for her. Maybe even before that, when she looked up from the twitching mess of my father's guts and saw my eyes, and knew that no, I would not follow her to the end of this.

Gianna always got what she wanted from me, one way or another.

Except the one thing that she wanted most, the thing I gave to Dean.

He was the weight holding me back, and then the leash dragging me on; all else aside, I'm goddamned lucky that he didn't stay in Dakota like I wanted, because if she'd taken me out there and gotten me to kill her somehow, I probably would have stayed. Wound up a spook light myself, or just followed her into whatever Hell she's bound for.

And maybe she was hoping for that, too.

It's not something I like to think about. I don't think about any of it at first, that first awful stretch of seconds after she fell and the gunshot faded. Then I say to Dean, "Can you walk, or what?"

He stares up at me, her blood splattered on his face, mixed up with his own. "God, Kimmy…"

"Get up. I can't fuckin' carry you, Dean." The shotgun's still in my hands; I throw it away from me and turn back for the hill.

He catches up to me pretty quick; I'm not going anywhere, after all, can't get back up the slope in any hurry, not jacked up in the head like I am. Thank Christ, he's got the good sense not to touch me, but I turn around and clock him one anyway. His head snaps around with the blow, no resistance; he was expecting it, but for the wrong reasons.

That's Dean for you.

I grab, hands clutching at his hair and his shirt, whatever I can get. "You don't leave me. _You don't fucking leave me, you fuck_."

His eyes are wide, shocked. Disbelieving.

I shove him once, hard, and he goes down just like the punch. To the south it looks like the hill gets a little less steep: I head in that direction.

Dean takes his time. I get back to the road and all the way to the Impala, nothing but the day's dying light to guide me; I'm sitting on the road just where we went off when he finally strolls up. It's almost totally dark by now and Dean is just lines and a shape to me.

"Just burn her," I tell him, hiccupping between the words. I can't even remember starting to cry, but my face is wet and there's snot on my upper lip. I swipe it away with the back of my hand. "I don't want--just fuckin' burn her, Dean."

He clears his throat, pulls himself together. "Your head okay?"

"Peachy. Man, I always knew you had a death wish, but I didn't know it was _this_ bad."

He startles, feet scuffing on the gravel as he shifts his weight. "I don't. No, Kimmy--I don't, I swear. I just--" He breaks off, breathing hard. "I don't want you to _know_. And I don't want you to stay with me--"

"Don't finish that thought if you wanna keep all your fuckin' teeth, Dean."

He holds fast. "I don't want you to stay with me because you feel like you _have_ to."

I rub the heel of one hand into my eye socket then drop it to dangle across my knees. The skin on my cheekbones and shoulders stings with what I'd guess is one helluva sunburn. "So tell me. Or better yet, let's wait around for her ghost. I can keep shooting her until it gets through your thick fucking skull. Or you can shoot her this time.”

"Jesus, Kim!"

"What? Too much for you? What's it gonna take, Dean, to make you believe? It's you and me, man, that's it. If you can't get yourself to believe that, then you best put a bullet in both of us right now, brother."

He doesn't. Instead he asks plaintively, "But _why_?"

"Dunno. Guess I believe in you. Go burn her fucking body, wouldya? I don't feel like having to do that again."

I lie down right there in the road, the stars of a desolate place hanging above me. There's more to it than that, of course, but it's not something that I think Dean would understand. He and Gianna, they wanted the same thing from me: stay to the end, no matter what. But they had different reasons.

Gianna wanted someone to live for her, and was willing to kill for it. Dean, he wants someone to live _for_ , and he's willing to die for it.

An indeterminate time later, I wake with an echo of Gianna's voice in my ears, singing her lullaby. Dean is wrapping me up in a blanket and I clutch at his shoulders. "Did you--is she--"

"Sh, sh. Yeah, she's gone. Salted, burned, the whole deal."

He must have changed his clothes, too, because I don't smell it on him. "We gotta go out tomorrow… get the rest."

Dean pushes me down. "There's no one to get. Spook lights are gone, no EMF readings anywhere out there…they left with her. Tomorrow we're walkin' back to town, get a tow truck out here. Oh, and yeah, you wrecked my fuckin' car again, Kimmy, that's two strikes. One more and I really _will_ shoot you."

The humor's a little strained, but it still manages to surprise a laugh out of me, shakes things up enough that when Dean moves away I pull him down, tuck him into my side. It's gonna be a frigid bitch of a night, one of those starry desert types that sucks all the warmth of day right out of the ground. Dean sighs and huddles against me, worming under the blanket. "I'm just sayin'. You're not allowed to drive again for a year."

At least he's thinking into the future: it's not 'forever,' but it's something. I close my eyes against the night and whisper, "Sing me something."

"What?"

"Sing me something. C'mon, dude, shut up about it and sing."

Dean hesitates a moment, uncertain; but then, slowly, fumbling, he starts. " _The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out._ "

I almost laugh, then stop myself. He doesn't mean it as a joke. Gianna's lullaby must be echoing in his head, too, and this is what he's chosen to drive it out. I turn my cheekbone against the ball of his shoulder.

" _Up came the sun, and dried up all the rain, and the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again._ "

 

  
Chapter 30: Matrimony

Dean and I spend the winter at John's place. The disappearance of a female serial killer kicks up some dust in Nevada and gets a few mentions in the national press, so Dean nabs us a tow truck and we high-tail our asses down to Oklahoma, and John.

We need the break.

Martha must've called ahead and given John the lowdown, 'cause he's pretty well-prepared to handle us for all that we turn up in the middle of the night. "Y'can draw straws for the hideaway," he grunts when he meets us in the driveway, a thick parka pulled up around his jaw. "Got some pot roast in the fridge if yer hungry."

He's gone and regrown his beard, made it greyer than last I saw the thing. When I tell him so, he cuffs me on the back of the head, which accidentally knocks me straight into hugging range; of course he obliges, and it's more a comfort to me than I'd expect. I've been jumpy about the feel of skin on mine ever since--but a parent is a parent is a parent, and John's about 200 pounds of solid stability right now. One of his meaty paws settles awkwardly between my shoulder blades. "Hey, Kimmy."

"Hey, John-Dog."

A thin, unpleasant layer of frost and discolored snow smears itself on the ground, not enough to be pretty but more than enough to almost take Dean's feet out from under him a few times as he pulls a tarp across the busted Impala. He takes his time with her, touching her hurts and broken pieces like a surgeon. The damage ain't fatal, but it'll still take some time to get her back in fighting condition, especially if we're doin' it alone.

John and I leave Dean to it. He pours himself a glass of mineral water and pretends not to hover while I haul the crock of pot roast from the fridge to the stove; it's tough work for a husky Midwestern fellah to make himself unnoticeable. I throw the guy a line. "How's work?"

Another grunt, John-speak for a billion different phrases and emotions. Fortunately, he elaborates: he's gotten more communicative in the last few years, no doubt a result of Martha's influence. I can only imagine what it was like for Sam and Dean growing up, filling in the post-grunt silences with guesstimations. "Frustrating. The PT centers out here are a joke. Not enough equipment, not enough staff, not enough _anything_. Guess they're too damn busy building another tank." He scrubs a hand over his face, calloused skin rasping in his beard. "I always figured we'd learned our lesson back in 'Nam, but it's the same shit all over again. Folks keep sendin' kids out to war, kids keep comin' back without their legs. We never learn."

I poke at the lumpy potatoes and bits of carrot. "Don't think we do. How's the other work goin'?"

I'd noted the wall-sized map in the living room when I came in. John pours me my own, more flammable medicine, and we leave a lid on the pot roast to simmer while we migrate over to the map. When I check it out a second time, the color-coded thumbtacks catch my eye right away; John smiles with a bit of pride. Since he landed in the Sooner state, John's become an informational hub in the hunting world. Kind of ironic, considering that--from Dean's accounts--he spent most of his own hunting days avoiding human contact; but there's nothing like living past your own expectations to jolt that right outta ya.

He doesn't do any hunting himself these days, but he keeps tabs on the recent news and lends a hand to those in need. Just last summer he cleaned out his whole garage and set up some old-time hunter named Glen Phillips who'd had a wendigo-shaped chunk taken out of his leg. Took a while to heal and he spent the summer months limping from the front door to the mailbox and back, his mouth twisted up somethin' sour. Never said a word to Dean or I whenever we hung around, but he put a new roof on the garage when he left. There's new carpeting in here, too, and nice storm windows to replace the old WWII-era warped glass. He'd never take money, not John, but people got other ways of giving thanks.

Martha's probably to blame for the potted ivy clinging to life in the window sills, and I hide a smile in my glass at the thought of John Winchester watering a plant.

"Red for demons," John explains, his fingers drifting over the map. "Black for ghosts, yellow for poltergeists, green for shapeshifters, brown for anything with sharp teeth and no brains--wendigos, Black Dogs, the like. Blue for water creatures. Anything I hear about gets put up here."

"Cool deal," I say, though my eye falls on a black thumbtack in Nevada.

"So are you two stickin' around for the holidays? I don't think I could take another solo round of the Collins herd this year."

I forcibly turn my mind away from the map. "Yeah. We gotta lay low for a while anyhow."

"Good. Don't, ah, don't tell Dean, but I had a little heart attack a couple months ago."

That gets a spit-take of whiskey, and I hope none of you ever have to inhale that shit. "You had a _heart attack_?" I choke, my nasal passages on fire.

John scowls, glancing at the door. "Keep yer voice down, wouldya? It wasn't a big one, I drove myself to the hospital and everything."

"And what, you broke your dialing finger? Jesus, John."

"Don't make a thing out of it," he tells me sternly. "I don't want Dean worrying."

So it happens that we decide to spend half the winter holed up amongst the Okies, me on the hideaway bed and Dean on the Lay-Z-boy in the corner. At first I was nervous about how he'd take it: Dean got a straight shot of wanderlust as a kid, and I hear that shit's more addictive than nicotine. I think, though, that _Dean_ thinks _I_ need to stay in one place for a while. Which is just fine, so long as he doesn't get any more ideas about leavin' me behind for my own good.

It's gonna take me a while to forget that moment, under glaring lights of sun and spooks, when he'd said, _It's okay_. Like it fuckin' _was_.

Idiot.

-o-

It takes a week for John to stop dancing around me; Dean, though, hangs on stubbornly to his precious walls. It feels like we've reverted back to the beginning, when he'd been all flash and smile and miles to go before you hit anything meaningful.

I'll admit to not being at my best, either, and we have it out in a grocery store a few days after Thanksgiving over some shit I can't even remember. Two of the deadliest people on the North American continent, and I'm pretty sure we were arguing over salad dressing. Security actually escorted us from the building… we were escorted out by grocery store _security_. Clearly, this can't go on forever: but I do not have an in-fucking-exhaustible source of patience and forgiveness to draw on. I'm hurt, I'm pissed, and I'm taking it out on Dean.

On the ride home, I lean my forehead against the cold window. "I know you think I'm Wonder Woman, Dean, and I wish I was. I'm not."

Dean stares out at the road and doesn't say anything for the whole rest of the night, stays silent through dinner, and goes to bed without a word. Gianna opened a lot of old wounds, for both of us.

The next morning it starts all over again: we're in a rut, we know it, and neither one of us knows how to climb out. To all the married, civil-unioned, and otherwise committed folk out there, do you ever have one of those days where you look at your mate and _cannot fucking stand_ anything about them? Okay. Take that, and multiply it by a week. Suddenly it bugs the shit out of me that Dean refuses to shut his mouth when he chews, and he complains that I'm picky about store-brand salad dressing--that was it, yeah--and forget about either one of us sleeping in the same room as each other without complaint.

"You snore," I spit over breakfast. "I always kept my mouth shut, but you SNORE LIKE A GODDAMNED MULE." I then launch into an imitation of Dean's snorting, rattling nighttime noises.

" _So do you, bitch_ ," he snaps, and starts making this really fucking irritating _whistle_ noise that I _know_ can't possibly come out of my mouth at night.

John slams his bowl down, spilling nonfat milk and high-fiber cereal everywhere. " _GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE._ "

We both take off with our tails between our legs. John's desperate enough to get us gone that he loans us his truck--throws the keys at Dean's head. "If either of you come back before dark, _I'll shoot you both in the balls._ " He slams the door.

"I haven't got any balls," I reply, but only under my breath.

Dean snorts at me and shambles off for the truck. God, I _hate_ that bow-legged stride of his; why the fuck can't he learn to walk like a normal person? I _know_ he didn't ride that many horses growing up, dammit.

Christ. We're gonna kill each other.

Fortunately, I sit on a tack. It's waiting for me on the truck seat: I yelp as it digs into my butt. Dean slaps the steering wheel, already pissed off that the engine is taking so long to turn over in the cold. "What the fuck is it now, princess?"

I flip him off with one hand and dig underneath me with the other. The tack, it turns out, is taped to a newspaper article. 'WIFE SHOOTS HUSBAND, CLAIMS BODY SNATCHING.'

I read the headline aloud to Dean, who _finally_ gets the goddamned truck engine to roll over. "Sounds like a case," and there's that gleam in his teeth. "What color's the tack?"

"Purple."

"Purple? What the fuck is purple? Barney invasion?" The truck skids a bit on the ice and Dean swears, pulling at it.

"Don't yank at the wheel on ice, you dumb fuck! I don't know what purple is, it sounds like a case!"

"Don't tell me how to fucking drive this truck, bitch! And you're right, probably a shapeshifter."

"If you call me a bitch one more time I'm gonna kick you in the balls so hard you'll have a new Adam's apple! And shapeshifters were green, not purple!"

He swerves to avoid a mailbox. "Then we should check it out and see what purple means! Cunt!"

"Fine! It's right on the other side of town! Prick!"

Okay, so it wasn't the brightest idea. We're not dealing with the brightest people in the world, here.

-o-

Turns out, the wife has been transferred to the psychiatric ward. Throwing Dean in with a crazy person would be like dousing a bonfire with napalm, so that's my gig.

She spends the first twenty minutes gibbering about how things are too big and her chest feels funny. When I finally manage to focus the conversation on her dead hubby, she stretches against the restraints to look me in the eye and whisper, "He wasn't _her_. Not anymore."

"Then what was he?"

She crazy-laughs and flops around on his pillow. "He was me. She was me and I was her and I still am. I'm me and I'm _her_."

Dean idles the truck in the parking lot, both of his hands pressed flat against the dashboard to soak up the maximum amount of heat. "Any luck with the crazy, Dr. Watson?"

"She's crazy. Anything on your end?" (Which is mistake #1. If I'da told Dean the chick's exact ramblings, he might have known what we were dealing with right then. I refuse to take full knocks for it, though, because…)

"Talked up the neighbors. Sounds like they'd had problems, arguments and such. Might be the dude just shot her." (…mistake #2. Dean had also heard that the unhappy couple had been looking at unconventional marriage counseling; that meant diddly-squat to Dean, who probably imagines that all counseling involves blood-letting and thumbscrews. Hence his emotional state.)

So we almost call it a day--figuring that purple means a dud--but swing by the couple's house on the off-chance that there'll be something to keep us occupied and (most importantly) out of the cold until John feels charitable enough to answer the door with something other than a shotgun blast.

We get our wish, and how.

At first all we find of note is a pretty impressive collection of nudie mags hidden in the bathroom, full of vacant-eyed, huge-breasted women; we fight over them, eventually decided by a coin toss. But then I walk into the master bedroom, bitching over my shoulder about how we're wasting our time and we could just get a drink somewhere if he'd stop being so damned stubborn, and I get a jolt straight up from my legs. For a half-second I think I've stepped on an exposed wire or something, and then I'm _outside myself,_ hovering in midair and freaking right the fuck out.

I can see my body right below me; my body's face is right at ankle level with my--spirit, or whatever. Looks like I'm having a seizure, eyes rolling, muscles twitching, the whole nine. I scream soundlessly.

"Finish your friggin' sentence," Dean says as he walks in the opposite door, then bellows, " _Kim_ ," and dives. I kick at him with noncorporeal feet--how do ghosts do so much damage, anyway? Must be something they practice--but he doesn't slow an inch.

The second he touches my body, I get another jolt in all of my phantom limbs, though it's Dean who yelps.

Then I'm sitting on the edge of their big, blood-stained bed, panting through my teeth. And I'm also leaning against the wall beside the door, staring.

"Oh, shit," I say, except it's not me. It's my mouth and my body, but I'm over here on the bed.

"What the--" and _that_ ain't right. That deep, baritone voice spooks me so bad that I choke off in mid-sentence.

Not-me regards me-me with one pissed-off glower. "Please tell me that's you in there, Kim."

"In where?" Yep, still baritone. Dean's baritone.

Not-me straightens away from the wall and rubs the heel of my palm against my forehead, a gesture that is familiar but not _mine_. "Just--don't move for a minute, okay? Don't freak out. Everything's okay."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Just checking." The hands I hold out in front of me have little _hairs_ on them. "Oh, I hate our lives."

"Yeah," Dean-in-me agrees. "On the bright side, I think I know what purple means."

-o-

Moving in a man's body, it turns out, is a lot harder than it looks. Namely, there are… hanging things involved. Reasonably big things, in Dean's case. "Shit, no wonder you walk bowlegged all the time." I shudder at the feel of an actual _cock_ in my body space. _Attached_ to me. Yuck.

"I do not." Dean staggers again. "Jesus, your legs are so short! How the hell do you get anywhere?" He pauses and claps a hand between his legs, face doing some awful acrobatics through shock and horror. "Holy shit."

"Relax," I tell him quickly. "It's over here. Still attached, doin' fine."

There's nothing to find in the bedroom: we scour it top to bottom until it starts to get dark, and we've both run into our share of furniture. We each try coming in through the doorway and standing in the exact spot that I got the first hit of soul-swapping power; Dean does some kind of healing chant; I mutter a few prayers. Nothing happens. He stays in my body and I stay in his.

"This happened before, with me and Sam," Dean muses. He looks at me-himself in the mirror, poking at my nose. "Guy in Alabama put something in Sam's drink, meant to yank his soul straight outta him. It woulda worked, but I stole some of his beer, so instead of getting sucked away, we popped right into each other."

I join him in front of the antique mirror, peering over--Jesus, _over_ \--his/my head. "You sure that wasn't just an acid trip?"

"Naw, voodoo." Dean pulls his shirt away and raises eyebrows down at his chest, smirking. "Nice."

I smack him in the back of the head and he staggers--whoa, gotta watch the weight ratio, there. Dean throws me a dirty look then turns all the way around to face me. It's like looking in the mirror again, except not: I can see Dean in there peering back at me, just in the cock of eyebrows and the faint downward purse at the corners of his mouth.

"Weird," he says for both of us.

"Totally."

"Are my nose hairs always this long?"

"Yeah." I frown at the top of my own head: I think I see some gray. "Well, this is disturbing on a buncha different levels. You think this is voodoo, too?"

"Voodoo that you do-do. Nope. Doesn't feel like it. C'mon, let's get something to eat, I'm starved. Or _you're_ starved."

"Dude," I grumble as I follow him out the door--and man, that's my own ass. Weird to be checking myself out. "Stop acting so blasé. I'm feeling lonely in the freakout corner."

"Relax. At least neither of our souls have gone missing or jumped into a stranger or something. Try not to wander off again and we'll be fine. And if you mess up my body, I'll put a _dress_ on yours."

I smack the back of his head again. "I'll shove my dildo up your ass."

He stops short, eyes wide. "Kim! Don't even joke about that! That--that's my _ass_!"

"Exactly! And that's my dignity! Stop trying to indulge your cross-dressing fantasies, you sick fuck!"

Dean scowls and stomps out the front door.

Getting to the truck entails a lot of weaving and staggering and cursing. Male and female centers of gravity differ by just enough to make us look like a pair of drunks as we lurch around in our new bodies.

Fortunately, there's no one around to comment… except the squirrely-looking guy in the station wagon who scrambles with the wheel and the gear shift. He accelerates too fast and spins his wheels on the cold pavement, which gives Dean enough time to dodge forward and point a gun at the guy through the windshield.

Or it _would_ , except Dean's not in his own damned body. His legs pitch him too far forward, and his hand gropes emptily at the small of his back, six inches away from the Colt I keep on my hip. It's too late to yell and they're too far away for me to grab him back; the wheels catch and Dean bounces off the windshield, ponytail flying.

"Dean!" I dive forward--wow, extra two inches of reach--and catch him before his head cracks on the street.

He wheezes against my hands. "All right, I'm all right, go after the fucker--"

"The fuck I will! That's my body, retard!"

Dean gets breath in to yell at me, but cuts off when the station wagon's brakes squeal. I grab the Glock from my back as its gears _chunk_ together and it backs up toward us. The window rolls down an inch, and the balding, thin guy behind the wheel pokes his long nose out at us. "I'm sorry! Are you badly hurt, miss?"

Dean and I both stare at him for a long, silent moment. Then I shoot out both tires.

The Thin Man yelps and dives down in the seat. "Don't shoot! I surrender!"

-o-

The Thin Man's name is Tobias Wilford Edmington, Jr., and he works in the personal enrichment business. Looks like he's got plenty of personal enrichment, himself: his suit's from Hugo Boss, his eyeglasses (now cocked sideways) look like Armani, and his shoes cost a couple grand. "Why the hell are you driving a station wagon?" I ask, looking through the sea of platinum credit cards spread out over the wagon's hood.

The cold-red tip of Tobias' nose flushes darker. "I was attempting to be incognito."

Dean snorts; he's still holding his side, but otherwise he looks steady. "Kinda screwed that up, huh? What're you lurking in the bushes for?"

Tobias draws up indignantly. "I was not _lurking_ , madame, I was--I was attempting to gain entry without garnering notice."

Dean sends me a brief, bewildered look. Not that he doesn't understand all the big words just fine, he just can't believe that there's someone who actually uses them. "What for?"

"I regret to say you would not believe me if I told you."

"Okay, let me take a wild stab." Dean puts his boot on the bumper and leans against it. Cool stance, except he's missing about three inches of height and wobbles off-balance; he recovers and points a finger at Tobias. "There's an enchantment of some kind on the master bedroom, causes two people to switch bodies. It's gone wrong and now you're here to cover your ass and remove it."

A goldfish would do less gaping than Tobias right now. "Who are you people?"

I break in. "I'm Chris. And, uh, this is my partner… Dena."

They both turn their gapes on me, though only one of them looks like he wants to gut me where I stand.

I manage to get them both in the truck without anyone lunging at anyone else. Tobias blanches at the handcuffs, "That's really not necessary," but doesn't struggle. On the way back to John's, he explains that he's part of a New Age branch of counseling that focuses on empathy and mutual understanding between partners.

Predictably, Dean gets pissed. "You set up a _soul swap_? To help with their _marriage_?"

Tobias flinches a little more, slumped skinny body inside a posh suit. "We've had excellent results thus far. Amazing. People just need to _see_ what it's like for others, just for a little while. We don't do it without written authorization, of course, and all legalities waived."

"They did this willingly?" I ask, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.

"Oh, they requested it. The Hibberts were referred to us by an acquaintance, if I recall correctly--they'd been struggling in their marriage for years. We explained the terms of our services--"

"You explained that you'd be taking their _souls_ out of their _bodies_?"

"Dean--a. Dena. Relax." This Tobias guy is about as much a threat as a kitten, wilting where he sits. "What went wrong?"

"I'm not sure," he answers plaintively. "They weren't doing very well in the therapy; the enchantment wears off after a week, but then Mr. Hibbert--I can't understand what went wrong."

"I'll tell you what's gone wrong." Dean twists around--ponytail swinging… I really need a haircut. "You've gone and fucked with the natural order of the universe, is what's gone wrong."

"Dena! Would you calm down!"

"Oh, _fuck_ you! What's next, necromancy for grief counseling?"

"We were firmly assured that the product was safe for use with humans--"

"And who did the reassuring, huh, some guy in a robe with a tattoo on his tongue?"

Tobias flushes, looks away. Dean snorts again and glowers at Tobias, me, the dashboard, everything.

It occurs to me right about then that if the enchantment went wrong with the Hibberts, chances look good for Dean or I, or both, to go all Cuckoo's Nest with a side of Natural Born Killers. And we've both got a much bigger arsenal than either of the Hibberts.

Oh, this isn't going to be good.

-o-

John, incredibly, figures it out all on his own. We're still getting Tobias settled at the kitchen table when he takes me firmly by the arm and pulls me aside. "Kim?"

I stare. "Yeah. How the hell did you--?"

"I know my son," he growls, "and _that_ is my son."

He points to where Dean stands in the doorway, face mesmerized as he… _cups_ my _boobs_. "Dean! A! Dena!" I grab the nearest non-breakable object--a half-empty tub of margarine--and raise it. "Stop feeling them up!"

Dean dodges behind the wall. "I can't help it, okay?!"

Tobias looks at us in horror. Probably thinks he's fallen into a den of sexual perverts. John reluctantly spoons out some canned chili, and we get a full re-telling from our reluctant dinner guest, including the company resource for all their soul-swapping needs (some Indian shaman in Texas). After Dean handcuffs Tobias to the hideaway bed's metal frame, John, Dean and I sojourn to the back porch to bitch at one another.

John sits with his head in his hands. "Why did I give up drinking?"

"Better question is, why'd you leave that printout in the truck?" Dean's taken his shoes off and is eyeing his toes. "You had to know we'd find it. Y'know, Kim, you got weird-looking feet, I've never seen them up close like this."

"Fuck you!"

"I figured you guys could use a job, get your minds offa things. I wasn't expectin' you to get your own damn selves swapped!"

"How 'bout we finger-point later, gentlemen." I straighten and put my hands on my flat, bony hips. Damn, I feel ugly… which isn't a knock on Dean, it's just that I can't stand men's bodies, with all their hard lines and lack of curves. "What do we do to fix it?"

Dean shrugs, looks to his dad. "Sam and I had to track down the voodoo priest. Spell or enchantment--you always gotta go to the source."

"What, the marriage counseling company?"

"And whatever shaman they've got on their side." John steeples his fingers in front of his lips. "If we get a name, I can put some feelers out, figure who we're dealin' with."

"Great. Let's do that. Just--ah. Dean."

"Yo." He's poking at his bellybutton; you'd think he's never seen an outie.

"I need to pee."

Dean blinks at me. John groans and rises, his palms holding us at bay. "Christ, I'm too old for this."

About five minutes later, Dean and I stand in the narrow bathroom, arguing over who's going to do what. "I am NOT touching a dick, Dean. I don't care whose it is."

"FINE, then I'll hold it."

"Fine." I unzip carefully, then stop. "Wait. Those are _my_ hands. You can't touch your dick with my hands."

Dean's mouth hangs open. "Have you lost your _mind_?"

"Fuck you," I spit out of nowhere. I have no idea what to do about this ugly feeling that's been lurking in my chest since Nevada; fucking Gianna, bringing back all that shit I'd almost buried. I try to reel myself in. "You _know_ , Dean. Don't pretend you don't."

"Okay," he says quickly, looking away. "Okay. You can pee sitting down, if you want, just don't get my balls wet."

He looks so uncomfortable and weirdly guilty--it's a testament to how well I actually know Dean, that I can read his expressions off my own face. I shake his shoulder. "It's not you, awright? It's just, like. Dicks in general. They're gross."

"Jesus, Kim, I know that. My dick's awesome. Christ, just--pee already, wouldya?" He turns away and faces the door, arms folded.

For the night, we leave Tobias chained to the hideaway. Dean and I sleep upright on the sofa together and I regret to report that I do, in fact, snore like a teakettle.

-o-

Getting all four of us in the truck isn't as unhappy as I feared. I'd expected to play peacekeeper between Tobias and Dean, but ole Toby, bless him, turns out to be a halfway-decent guy. Pampered, yes, way too talky for his own good, but he came all the way from LA to figure out what had happened to the Hibberts even after Matchkeepers, Inc. instructed their employees to keep quiet on the subject.

That doesn't mean he's not plenty apprehensive about the weapons we load up. "Is all of this… necessary?"

"Probably not," I reassure him.

"Eh, you never know," Dean interjects, loading more shells into a shotgun. "Might be he just got a spell wrong. Or, he could be deliberately knocking people off, stealing their energy to power himself up… like those little coins in Mario."

"Y'know, you don't have to sound so eager."

Dean grins sharp and wide, familiar grin on unfamiliar lips. "Oh, yes I do. Let's go see the witchdoctor."

Dean's good mood lasts through most of the night--he talks to keep John awake through a nighttime snowfall, all those white particles curving out of the darkness--and on into morning. When it crashes, though, it crashes ugly.

In Springer, we stop for breakfast and gas; I'm in the checkout line with bagels in my hand, blearily calculating my purchase, when Dean yanks on my arm. "Kim, I think I'm bleeding."

"Wha--" I stop short. He looks positively green, miserable.

The gas station mini-mart doesn't exactly have a wide array of feminine products. Dean throws elbows to get the bathroom key and I grumble to myself about stains on my pants as I critically look over the whole aisle. (I'm picky about what I put near my pussy, awright? Deal.) Some sad-mouthed teenaged girl stares at me, her cheeks pink; I stare back, suddenly remembering the dick between my legs as I hold a pack of winged maxis.

A second trip through the line is enough to bring John barreling in. "What the hell's takin' so long?" he barks, something he only ever does with Dean. I've seen it a few times, but have never been on the receiving end of John's full growl; it puts me in mind of an alpha wolf snapping at the cubs, demanding submission.

In retaliation on Dean's behalf, I wordlessly hold up the package of maxi pads. It works like a talisman: John sees them, looks puzzled, then practically stumbles backward out of the store once realization sinks in.

The bathroom doors are on the outside. I knock on the Women's. "Dena?"

It creaks open and he glares out, still looking queasy. "If you call me that one more time… get in here."

He's got his pants around his hips and it looks like he's jammed some paper towels in his underwear. I hold on for as long as I can, then blurt, "My baby's become a woman!" and curl against the wall.

Dean starts whacking me. I block with the maxi pads and howl, "It's your own body, _it's your own body_ , Dean! Love your body, don't abuse it!"

He snatches the pads from me and penguin-waddles back into the bathroom stall, slamming it behind him. "I hate you right now, Kim. I was _nice_ to you last night, remember that?"

That sobers me, because he _was_ , and I'm being a dick. "Hey, c'mon, man, I couldn't help it. Sorry."

There's no reply from the other side of the stall door. I sigh and hunker down into a crouch with my back against the bathroom wall, trying to gauge from the faint rustling what stage he's at in the process.

Dean takes away the guesswork. "Where the fuck does this go?"

"Pass out the undies and the pad, and I'll stick it on."

He sighs unhappily, shuffles his feet. "You have to do this every month?"

"Yup."

"Damn. No offense, but being a woman sucks."

"Quiet, you, it's got huge advantages. I can come five times in a minute."

Dean stops moving and makes an indescribable noise. "…seriously?"

"Fork over the damn underwear, bitch."

A hand pops out the bottom of the door, holding a maxi and a pair of stained underwear; I go to work on them. Dean clears his throat. "Whatever, I'm still fucking _bleeding_. 10 goddamned orgasms in a row isn't worth a body that bleeds this much every month."

"Aw, you loved it yesterday."

"Well, yeah. I mean, come on, don't you think it's kinda cool, being somebody else?"

I pause in the act of peeling the wing stickers off to consider the implications of that statement. It's hard to tell if he realizes them himself; probably not, knowing Dean. I fold the wings down and secure them on the underside, then pass the panties back under the door. "Here. Put this on, and quit your bitchin': I had to teach myself how to do this."

-o-

Sixteen hours later, we're in the middle of a full-out gun battle. Shaman and CEO Doug Bull has built a billion-dollar self-help empire from scratch based on soul swapping and mind control; he's not gonna let a gang of yahoos disrupt the show with complaints about fucked-up spellwork. Which is how we end up in an office-building shootout with a bunch of hired goons.

The self-help business is rough, man.

There's a giant cartoon sun above the Matchkeepers, Inc. main reception counter: it smiles relentlessly down at us, except for the bullet hole through its left eye.

We're dashing out the other side of the building, hot flames at our backs and Tobias clutching a bloody table leg. Can't say how this'll work out in his life, for good or bad, but the timid, nebbishy businessman has a real light in his eyes right now

I'm understandably a little distracted by the explosions and adrenaline and half-crazed businessmen, so I don't see the guy in my path until Dean shouts and grabs me. If he was in his own body, he'd swing us both to the ground, but he's lost a good thirty pounds in the transfer, so all he does is loop an arm around my neck and pull a do-si-do move so that he's between me and the rising gun.

It's only luck that we're not alone, and that John's a good shot.

Everything crashes back and I barely hold it back long enough. The second we're out of the blast zone, I haul off and throw my fist into Dean's face, never mind that it's my own, too. He grunts and goes down like nothing.

"Kim!" John drags me back. I fight against him wildly until I remember the heart attack.

"Th' _fuck_?!" Dean scrambles up, hand cupped over his mouth. It's my own fucking body and I don't care, I just want to pound him until the message gets through, morse code in my fists.

"You wanna, huh, you wanna die?" I yell. Damn, I've heard Dean's voice like this, white-hot rage making it deep and furious; heard it in Phoenix, when he almost killed his brother.

Dean stares, wide eyes reflecting the fire. I twist free from John and almost take another swing… but he's smaller than me, three inches and thirty pounds. Forget the bruise that I'll have when I switch back (if I switch back, maybe we'll just go fuckin' crazy and shoot each other), all I can focus on, suddenly, is how small he is, how fragile. Christ, is this how _he_ sees _me_?

Dean catches on and snarls. "Okay, I'll let you get shot next time."

I swear and lift one finger, level with his eyes; orange glow flickers between us, too much like dancing spook lights. "There's a difference between dyin' to save me and fuckin' _volunteering for that shit_."

I turn on my heel and shove past John. Dean's legs feel weird underneath me, going too far, too fast.

-o-

By the time we're across the state border and checked into a motel, I've calmed down enough to stop jittering all over the place. I stand outside in the parking lot while John books us a couple of rooms and Dean gets the bags out of the truck. The sky above me's clearer than glass, stars made sharp by the cold; I shiver and shove my hands into Dean's jacket. Damn fool should get something warmer than this old, beat-up leather.

Tobias shuffles up beside me cautiously. "So, um--you and Dena are switched, correct?"

"Yup."

"But you… do this on a regular basis. It's your occupation?"

I smile at the sky. "Not much of an occupation." He shuffles his feet and I glance sideways, take in his pale face. "You okay?"

Like I said, I don't know where this will go for him; but right then, he drew in a steady breath and said, "I believe so, yes."

It's enough to make me bump his shoulder with my fist as I turn back to the motel. "You done good, Tobes. You done good."

John stands near the side-by-side doors, eyeing me uncertainly as he weighs the little room keys attached to their plastic triangles. "Where you stayin'?"

I stick out my hand; there are bruises on the knuckles, and I don't look at them. "Wherever Dean is, John-Dog."

He hesitates then gives the key up.

Dean's got the TV tuned on a _Venture Brothers_ marathon and doesn't look up when I come in. I wait a minute for a glance that doesn't come, then flick his bare foot. "How's your mouth?"

" _Your_ mouth, y'mean? It's all right--gonna hurt in the mornin', though." He shoots me a smirk made lopsided with the swollen lip. "Have fun with that."

"Hey, maybe I'll get lucky and we'll go crazy instead."

Dean snorts and turns back to the TV. I flick his foot again. "Jesus, Kim, knock it off!"

"C'mon, dude, I need a post-hunt thing. Burn all the adrenaline off. Don't be a pissy bitch."

He snorts again, but eyes me sideways. "We're not gonna… _talk_ , are we?"

"Fuck, no."

"…fine."

-o-

We've stopped in a smallish town: good for avoiding attention, bad for the night-life options. Everything's closed up, all the lights turned off, and we end up driving around and around in this dark town, just the two of us and our headlights.

Dean plays AC/DC until it's too much even for him, and switches it off.

When the silence finally gets too much for me, I sigh and pull over. Dean's immediately on guard, suspicious. "I knew it, you wanna talk, don't you?"

I kill the engine and attempt to communicate just how insane I think he is with nothing but my eyebrows; I've seen Dean do it before. " _I'm_ gonna step out here and look at the stars for a minute. Maybe do some pushups… don't really feel like being cooped up in a motel room against just yet. You can stay here if you want." I open the door and shut it quick as I can behind me, before he can protest. I take the keys with me.

We're right on the edge of town, where buildings give way to flat fields. I lean against the side of the truck feeling the slow ebb of adrenaline and the reawakened aches of my borrowed body.

After a minute, Dean's door slams. I wait for him to join me, but instead he says, "Hey, Sam, it's Kim."

I twist around, eyes narrowed in the dark, and can just make out the faint glow of my cell phone, pressed against the side of Dean's head. Aw, _shit_.

Lucky, though: sounds like he's leaving a message. "Everything's fine, Dean's fine… we just beat the crap outta this shaman that was switching bodies, and Dean told me about how that happened to you guys before, with the voodoo. And, uh, he started talking about you, and I could tell that he--he really misses you, y'know? So I thought I'd give you a call and ask you how you're doin', see if you--I dunno. Give me a call sometime, 'kay? Okay. Thanks. Bye."

He hangs up and cuts off the light; all I can see is his outline. "Think he'll know it was me?"

"Yeah. Probably."

The scuff of his sneakers circles around and he leans against my side. "Will you talk to him? If he calls?"

I slide my arm around him and think to myself that Sam won't call. Or if he does, he'll call Dean direct; and Dean won't pick up. "Yeah, brother. I will."

Dean slides a little closer, huddled in the cold. "Your nipples are doin' weird shit."

That startles a laugh out of me, loud bark across the cold ground. "Yeah, well, so are your balls. It's fucking cold."

Dean chuckles, stuttery with cold and emotion, then sobers. "I'm pissed at you about the Gianna shit."

"Wha--the fuck you are! _I'm_ pissed at _you_! You let her just--you almost let her shootyou, dumbass!"

Dean thumps my ribs; I got sharp elbows. "If you ever actually _told_ me anything, insteada bein' Ms. Mysterioso, I wouldn't get fucking blindsided by shit all the time! Some of us mortals don't have telepathy, y'know--I didn't know what the fuck was goin' on. I mean, Christ, Kimmy, I never saw you look at anyone the way you looked at her."

"So be grateful you're usually not a chick and shut up about it. You're the one that didn't want to talk."

Dean chuckles again, his teeth chattering loudly. "God, I miss my dick. You think we're gonna go crazy when the enchantment starts to wear off?"

"Dunno. Hope not." I shake him, because I think he's got the point but I want to be sure. "Don't get any ideas, awright? No shooting yourself to save me or some shit."

"You ever think that maybe I just wanna save my body?"

"Nope. Dying doesn't prove you love me, Dean, it just makes you dead."

That's about as much as he can take, and he wriggles free. "God, whatever. It's too fuckin' cold out."

"Yeah, man. Let's go home."

-o-

We spend the remaining two days of our weeklong _Freaky Friday_ holed up against any police attention, and against a snowstorm that blows down from the north. Someone's gonna connect Toby to the Houston deal sooner or later, so John spends his time helping the guy pull all his accounts and disappear off the map. Dean and I park our butts in front of the TV: he's pissy and still whining about cramps; I've had quite enough of contact with the male body, and spend most of my time trying to ignore it.

At the end of the week John handcuffs both of us to opposite sides of the hideaway and we pass the whole night sitting against the headboard, spewing crazy shit at one another.

"Y'know," Dean muses, "I don't think I've ever really appreciated the musical talents of Britney Spears."

"Oh, I know! And her hair is so awesome. I think I'll get mine done like that, too, with braids and ponytails. And then I'll paint my nails pink, and get 'PRINCESS' tattooed right above my butt."

"Yeah, me too."

John sits in the Lay-Z-Boy with a shotgun laid over his lap, staring at us. He's been tense and grim all day, worried; now, though, it looks like he's fighting back laughter. "Oh, I'm too old for this shit."

There's some honesty mixed in with his sarcasm. I take note of it, even after the first crack of dawn has us jolting and twitching around the bed like convicts on an electric chair. John's terrified, shouting our names and grabbing at us both.

"What?" Dean croaks. It's his own voice. "God, I'm hungry. D'you have any Fruit Loops, Dad?"

It's a blatant attempt to calm John down, and the grizzled old guy scowls down at his son, even while he pets Dean's hair back from his sweaty forehead. "Christ, you two are gonna eat me out of house and home." He stomps into the kitchen.

We lay there for a bit, panting. "Dean?"

"Yeah," he says beside me. "Ohhhh, my dick. My beautiful dick."

"Just checking."

-o-

Springtime makes the world soggy, with snow melt and rain fall. It also makes Dean twitchy with the desire to _move_ and he polishes the Iron Maiden back into fighting form, all those long hours in the garage paying off in an expanse of sleek black metal. Poor baby's seen some hard hits in her day, but she always pulls through in the end.

Sam doesn't call. Dean and I don't talk about it, but I know it weighs on him. Some days, I sit on the steps leading from the kitchen into the garage, a thermos balanced on my knees and John's parka pulled around my shoulder, and watch Dean pace around his car. We trade quips and dirty jokes, any that we haven't told each other yet and a few that we have; it's enough to keep him from pulling back into his head, something he's liable to do on his own.

In the first week of March, way longer than we meant to stay, John comes out into the driveway to see us off. "Come visit an old man more often, huh?"

"Yeah." Dean jams his fists in his pockets, shifts his feet. "Thanks, Dad. I know it's kinda a pain, havin' us here…"

"Aw, shut up," John growls, and pulls Dean into a hug. They thump each other on the back a few times then hurriedly part. I repress a snicker. Men.

"Y'take care of yerself, Kimmy," he tells me, resting his chin on my head in turn. And in a lower voice, "Sam called a couple nights ago. Wanted to know how you guys were doin'… made me swear not to tell Dean."

I curl an arm around his waist and sigh into his flannel shirt. Men. "You, too, John." He pats my head like a kid and lets me go then stands in the driveway while we pull out, his arms folded against the cold.

Dean takes it slow at first, head cocked to hear the Impala's engine, and we wind past the old houses, up over the overpass onto the highway. By the time we get that far, Dean's got us really going, and as he turns us west he lets her rip.

I laugh, can't help the bubble of excitement and delight to be back on the road again, in one piece. It's a weird, fucked up life, but damn I love it so.

Dean grins back at me, teeth bright in the sun.

 

 


End file.
